Diehard Rovers men will no doubt point out that the team in black white and red started without half a dozen first team regulars to "concentrate on the league."

They will also point out that West fielded a "ringer" in 36 year old Mick Kent - the former Mowden player who is now player coach at Consett. Big Mick has Jonah Lomu's ability to break a tackle with his stride and wreaked havoc whenever he got the ball.

But the key to this game was the difference in class between the packs. Tim Sawyer and Chocky Davies were in awesome form plus we were much more mobile and first to every breakdown and in greater numbers.

And with Mick Kent bellowing encouragement and advice the backs finally got their act together with some superb handling and running.

There was a crowd of some 500 to stand in the drizzle for a minute's silence for Nev Brown and Dudley Jones - two stalwarts of Hartlepool rugby who had played for both clubs.

Rovers supporters turned out in numbers, and stayed around for a drink afterwards, and were obviously anticipating a close contest.

Their noise levels rose as the visitors started off the stronger keeping West in their own half for the first ten minutes. They were shoving the home pack around in the set pieces - but never threatened our line despite all of their early possession.

Signs of things to come were evident when we finally started to win some decent possession and opened the scoring with a great back row move.

Tim Sawyer started it by making a 15 metre break through the heart of the Rovers defence. Henry Tones was on his shoulder as he was tackled and he fed Davy Tighe who made ground before sending in Paul Rudd, who was galloping up behind, and he shrugged off a tackle to go over just to the right of the posts. It was a fitting reward for "Garse" whose game has been steadily improving week on week since he came back to the club from Blaydon.

Davy Tighe missed a fairly easy conversion and Rovers came back and should, in truth, have got on the scoreboard and taken the lead.

Former Westie Andrew Lilley was given the kicking duties in the absence of the injured Michael Walton. Rovers were awarded two kickable penalties but Andrew sent both of them wide to the right of the posts.

That proved to be the last of their scoring opportunities. On 25 minutes Allan Milne finished off a great spell of West pressure. Stabler fed him in the inside centre channel and he sent the defence the wrong way with a superb drop of the shoulder to go in under the posts.

Again this was a well deserved score. Milney has been the pick of the backs in recent weeks. Davy kicked this one to make it 12-0.

Rovers early enthusiasm was now on the wane while, for once, every West player wanted the ball.

We went further ahead on 37 minutes when the forwards set up a series of drives which brought them to five metres from the line. Enter Chocky Davies at speed and, despite having three men hanging onto him. he managed to ground the ball with Davy adding the conversion.

For once we had the luxury of a referee [the excellent Alan Hughes] plus two touch judges. Hughes was fairly lenient on some naive forward play but finally punished Rovers just before the break when he sin-binned a prop, who I think was Glen Wise, for killing the ball.

Davy Tighe got the penalty to make it 22-0 and, with Rovers down to 14 men for the start of the second half, the Westies were much more relaxed at half time.

We were even happier when Mick Kent achieved what he had threatened to all first half. He finished off a great move by galloping over, and then Rovers were temporarily down to 13 when stand-off Ian Drummond was sin-binned for also killing the ball.

The question now was how many points would West score and, more importantly for many, could we keep a clean sheet.

The confidence was oozing through the side and both Allan Milne and Mick Kent added tries before the guest was replaced by Glyn Dono. Kent's second try was a 30 metre burst along the right wing which had the home crowd roaring.

They made even more noise when Chocky did the same thing five minutes later. He showed a a rare turn of speed as he brushed off two tackles and stepped inside another to go in at the corner to make it 44-0.

Rovers kept on fighting but even though they were by now playing with most of their first team it was West who were making all the play.

The confidence showed when full back Peter Hodgson made as break through the centre and took the play into the vistors 22. The ball was recycled and replacement Phil Gilbraith, standing at inside centre, was sent in to complete the scoring.

The young flanker is a former West junior who now plays with Tech. He came on in the second half and certainly looked the part.

With the gloom gathering, and heavy rain falling, Mr Hughes decided to end the game there and then. It was some ten minutes short of normal time but there were no complaints. West had run in eight tries without reply and played some good rugby. Admittedly we face tougher defences in North One but this was a confidence booster as well as making a point to the rest of the town.

West: Hodgson, Kent [Dono 60], Connolly, Milne, Thomas, Stabler, Tighe, Painter [capt], Cullinane, Robinson [Geritz 60], Baggs [Bennett 41], Davies, Rudd [Gilbraith 55], Tones, Sawyer.

Reps: Dono, Bennett, Geritz.

Rovers Andrew Lilley, Chris Nicholson, Simon Rutherford, Paul Kirton, Mark Deer, Ian Drummond, Andrew Arnell, Neil Winn, Kevin McMorris, Glen Wise, Darren Smith, Dave Carroll, Simon Hall, Stuart Ryder, Mark Power.

Bench: Ben Tighe, Graham Coutts, Jimmy Campbell, Stuart Langston, James Measor, Andrew Borstwick