Mowden's 'Jeckyll and Hyde' start to the season continued at the Darlington Arena yesterday, with a narrow one point defeat to visitors Cinderford RFC, who looked 'dead and buried' after the home side had dominated the first half.

However, after oranges Mowden looked a shadow of first half the side who had prevented the visitors from registering any score at all before the interval.

The home side found their mojo early doors and were soon ahead after Cinderford were caught offside in defence, with home fly half Warren SEALS made no mistake with the resulting penalty. (3 - 0)

With Cinderford starved of any ball, Mowden's early possession domination saw them on the attack, sweeping upfield, with wing Brandon ASHER WOOD cutting a fine line across the visitors defence to register the first try of the game, (8 - 0) SEALS converting well from wide out. (10 - 0)

Mowden continued to press for further reward, but some resolute defence from the visitors prevented several promising attacks. On two occasions , further certain try scoring opportunities were snuffed out as the official adjudged that forward passes had occurred in the build up.

Warren SEALS added two further penalties before the break, as Cinderford transgressed due to the pressure of the home attack.

Cinderford mounted a counter attack just prior to the interval, with a series of set scrums, forcing Mowden into concede a couple of scrum penalties. As Cinderford tried for the pushover or a penalty try, Mowden turned the tables and countered with a fine defensive scrum, forcing the Cinderford pack backwards and into conceding a penalty themselves.

For the second game running, Mowden failed to build on a good first half performance and presented Cinderford the window of opportunity they hadn't had in the first forty minutes. Cinderford slowed the frenetic first half pace down, which brought rewards as after just four minutes of the restart, a series of pick and and drives from the forwards edged the visitors close to the home line, with flanker Matt GILBERT hauled over the whitewash for Cinderford's first try and first points of the game, (16 - 5) James BUTLER converting. (16 - 7)

Cinderford began to control possession in this half and hard-working flanker Joe MULLIS added another try after a further eight minutes (16 - 12), Butler again converting. (16 - 14)

A brace of BUTLER penalties put Cinderford ahead (16 – 20), before SEALS narrowed it down to a one point gap in favour of the visitors with a penalty of his own (19 - 20)

As the game entered the final ten minutes, the home side went close after incisive runs from Callum IRVINE and Ben FRANKLAND, but it was home wing Callum Mackenzie who latched on to a SEALS chip, gather and pass, to score near the posts (24 - 20) and with the SEALS conversion, (26 - 20) Mowden seemed to have won it with only five minutes or less remaining.

Home replacement lock Talite VAIOLETI entered the field at this time, but was soon straight back off again, when yellow carded for a high tackle. From the resultant penalty, Cinderford kicked to the corner and MULLIS scored from the catch and drive. (26 - 25)

So, agonisingly, it was all down to the last kick of the game and Cinderford replacement Stefan HAWLEY kept his composure to kick the winning conversion for the one point win. (26 - 27)