Bivens keeps the pot boiling for Darlington

11:27am Monday 24th March 2008

A SEASON which began disastrously for Darlington is building to an exciting climax in which they hope to avoid a second successive relegation and win the Durham Cup.

Coach Kevin Robinson, who has overseen the team's improvement, felt Saturday's 51-12 cup win against an experimental Blaydon line-up was the best performance of the season.

Although flanker Byron Kramer left the field with a back injury, Robinson expects to have a full squad to select from for Saturday's trip to Penrith, where victory will go a long way towards securing North One survival.

Apart from being a big believer in the traditions of the county cup, Robinson is keen for his team to qualify for the senior national knockout event, for which they had to play a qualifier against Westoe at the start of this season.

They lost heavily, but have run the South Shields club close twice in the league and now face them for a fourth time in the county cup final on April 5.

Durham City is pencilled in to stage the match, but Darlington might prefer to toss a coin for home advantage.

Wherever the game is played if Darlington maintain their improvement they will have every chance of victory, although Westoe also made clear their intentions in a 46-5 win away to a Mowden Park second string.

They will be keen to win the trophy outright this time after being awarded it by default three years ago, when Darlington were deemed to have played an ineligible player in the final.

Watched by the county selectors, Darlington's handling and support work were excellent as they forged a 43-0 lead early in the second half before a 15-minute blizzard stemmed the tide.

Darlington played as a team, whereas Blaydon's blend of youth and experience didn't click until the the last 20 minutes.

They could, however, take heart from the performance of some of their under 19s. Lanky No 8 David Sheldon clearly has a good future, while centre Fred Burdon showed glimpses of class. Andrew Archibald also has a future, although it might be in the back row rather than at lock unless he beefs up.

Blaydon missed a lot of tackles and were unable to hang on to the ball as they conceded four tries in the first half and three more soon after the resumption.

There was a hat-trick for powerful left winger Tom Bivens, who would have had a fourth had he not handed it to scrum half Sean Richardson, whose blistering break sent the winger clear up the touchline.

Richardson played briefly for Blaydon two years ago before a failure to agree terms led to one of his many moves.

If he is ready to settle down at a level which matches his ability, they might be interested in talking to him again.

Although he is not match fit, physio Nick Williams suggested he could be a partial answer to their current scrum half problems when he went on and made a difference in the second half.

He and Matt Hall scored their tries, both eluding tackles to skate in from around 20 metres.

Hall, the first-choice hooker, played most of the game at open side and finished at centre.

Two more of Blaydon's older heads, prop Paul Winter and lock Dave Whitehead, were rather harshly sin-binned.

The latter appeared to be trying to break up a sudden bout of fisticuffs, which was out of context with the general spirit of the game.

Darlington prop Dave Tunstead was also yellow-carded for his part in the flare-up, but the ten minutes' rest won't have harmed a player who is likely to be a key figure at Penrith.

His fellow Australian, Evan Haigh, showed his class at full back, while the other prop, Joe Oselton, looked a little meaner after returning shaven-headed from a night out with former team-mate Dan Miller.

Skipper Lee Richardson looked sharp on his switch to centre, counter-attacking strongly to set up the first try from 60 metres after Blaydon dropped the ball.

Bivens also made good ground before fly half Charlie Catterall finished it off.

Haigh swerved inside to go under the posts after taking the ball on the blind side of a ruck on the left, then Bivens scored the next two.

His second resulted from excellent handling by Catterall, Lee Richardson and Andrew Pugh.

Haigh's third conversion made it 26-0 at half-time and on the resumption he counter-attacked down the middle following a poor clearance and turned the ball inside with perfect timing for Catterall to score by the posts.

Bivens completed his hat-trick from the blind side of a ruck before handing Sean Richardson the next try.

The scrum half also nipped over at the dea