A weakened Mowden are strong enough for Rovers

With skiing trips and injuries, there were only 16 players for the trip to Hartlepool Rovers.

However, that did not deter Mowden and after a shaky start they were soon camped in Rovers 5m's. With three tries held up, Mowden finally found the tenacity for Robert Lawson to dive over and score the opening try.

However, from the kick off, Mowden then moved the ball quickly wide to Lewis, who taking the steps to draw the defender off-loaded to Alex who still had a lot to do and two defenders to beat, but scored Mowden's second. JonathanH converted.

With Mowden being agressive in the lineouts, they had been putting Rovers under pressure, but a lineout to Rovers on their 10m saw Greg Alston bursting through to put Rovers under pressure and passing to Callujm Sheridan, saw Callum dive over for Mowden's score.

Rovers, then dug deep and some good driving work saw them burst over the Mowden line to bring the game back.

The end of the half saw Mowden leading 17-7, but still having to work hard.

The second half saw ShaunT set up AlexF for Alex to run under the posts for his second of the game. JonnyH converted.

That was not be Shaun's moment of the game as Rover's centre was having a great run, for Shaun to start tracking him down, as the centre burst away, Shaun made a fantastic tap tackle that not only saw the centre tumbling, but also spilling the ball and giving the momentum back to Mowden.

Some great mauling from Mowden saw them work from the half way line to within 10m of the Rovers line, with GregA breaking out and un-selfishly passed the ball to CallumS to score even though he could have grounded it himself.

A final try and excellent conversion from Rovers saw the final score of 29-14.

Mowdens scrums were solid once again with Robert hooking fantastic when it was needed and wining a couple of important scrums against the head.

JonnyO also performed very well in the backs with his alertness at times making some excellent yardage for Mowden.

To a man the 16 that had to perform all performed very well. However, Greg Alston was certainly very disruptive to the Rovers team and set up at least two tries for Mowden, and was easily Man of the Match for the forwards.

The backs were a little more difficult to split, with Alex running in two tries, Ciaran providing very clean ball, but JonathanH did just enough to be Back of the Match.

Excellent performance with very few missed tackles and a bit more alertness around the loose would have seen a much greater score. Still some work to do on the breakdowns but a much improved performance.