Recent Form: Mowden Park have lost their past four games on the road, going down 31-21 at Rosslyn Park (despite leading 21-7 after the opening quarter), 34-15 at Cambridge and having previously suffered late defeats at Bishop’s Stortford (12-10) and Esher (18-17).

A highly impressive 33-15 win at home to Cinderford followed a 34-31 reverse at leaders Sale, DMP having dominated the first half in building up a 24-7 lead.

The north-east side eased past Taunton Titans 40-13 prior to that, having gone down to a 36-24 loss after the long trip to Plymouth Albion.

Eight days earlier they overcame Leeds Tykes 29-20 in front of a Friday Night crowd of in excess of 2,000 at the Darlington Arena.

That victory ended a five-match losing run in which they fell to a last-play penalty 32-30 at Birmingham Moseley, a hard-fought 33-28 double bonus-point setback to Rosslyn Park and a 40-15 reverse at RAMS when they picked up an early red card to prop Josh Crickmay.

The first two defeats were one-point nail-biters to Cambridge (32-31) and Stortford (25-24), the latter another with a late penalty.

DMP began the campaign with back-to-back wins with a come-from-behind 29-22 triumph at Hull and a 23-16 home win against Chinnor.

Players to Watch:

Max Davies – Second row has Championship experience with Ealing Trailfinders and Richmond and is in his third campaign with DMP, approaching a half-century of appearances.

Represented England throughout the age groups and was part of the Under 20 squad which won the 2017 World Rugby Championship in Georgia.

Ollie Hodgson – Captain is closing in on 150 caps for the club and is into his 10th season with DMP.

Previously part of the Newcastle Falcons and having also represented England Counties, the No. 8 has three tries from 12 appearances this season.

Matt Minogue – Australian fly-half from Ayrshire Bulls has proved an astute summer signing, leading the DMP point-scorers with 111 points including five tries.

The former schoolboy international tallied 119 points in 12 games for Rotherham Titans having made his debut in November 2021, before moving onto Scotland and then back to the north-east.

NB - Powerful back Morgan Passman has an impressive 16 tries in 14 games to date – the second most in National One – having previously claimed nine in seven when on-loan at DMP in the previous two seasons.