HOPPERS secured two invaluable league points with this hard earned win over Darlington.

Torrential rain created areas of standing water and both sides should be congratulated on some excellent rugby which brought each side three tries.

Darlington went in front after just five minutes with an unconverted try.

Prompted by the experienced Paul Manley and Steve Gough, Hoppers hit back and good work by Russell Flynn and a deft pass by Gough sent Oliver Viney in for a try which Gough converted.

A penalty put the visitors back in front and Hoppers had to withstand a siege on their line after Dave Chadwick had been shown a yellow card but when half-time came they had a deficit of just a single point.

A forward-designed try extended the visitors' lead but a Gough penalty pulled three points back.

Then Darlington lost a prop to the sin bin and, before he returned, Hoppers had snatched the lead.

Flynn used his pace and strength to run through three defenders and a pond to cross over in the corner.

Keeping up the pressure another try came courtesy of Charlie DuPre. A kick through by Gough stopped dead in a pool of water to wrong foot the defence and DuPre followed up to take advantage. Gough converted to put Hoppers 22-13 in front.

Sengili Tuihalamaka was then needlessly sin-binned to put Hoppers under pressure in the final minutes and a converted try under the posts narrowed the gap further in added time but they managed to hang on.

Hoppers travel to Macclesfield on Saturday and will be confident of victory as they have beaten them twice already this season, once in the cup and once in the league.

Final score: Grasshoppers 22

Darlington 20