EVEN the ever optimistic Mark Robinson could not defend the indefensible as Sussex hurtled towards defeat against leaders Durham which leaves them facing a battle for survival after eight seasons in the Championship’s top flight.

From 132-1, the county subsided to 245 all out in their first innings on day three at the Riverside as a pitch on which just five wickets had fallen in the first two days suddenly looked like a minefield.

It wasn’t. Sussex had been undone by some high-quality swing bowling from Callum Thorp but the familiar frailties which seemed to have disappeared when they made more than 400 in their previous two Championship games re-surfaced.

Following on 228 behind, Sussex lost four wickets in 17 overs either side of tea before Luke Wright and Andrew Hodd at least ensured they kept Durham waiting until today for what will surely be their sixth win of the season thanks to an undefeated sixth wicket stand of 93.

Coach Robinson said: “We have had better days. The ball swung more than on the two previous days, there have been a couple of poorly executed shots, momentum wasn’t with us and we find ourselves in a hole.

“We’re disappointed. They shouldn’t have got 473 and we shouldn’t be following on.

“There is still hope because we have two good batters at the crease but we know we have to do better in the first hour than we did in the first hour today.”

While a second successive Championship looks nailed on for Durham, Sussex are in danger of “doing a Kent.”

Their South-East rivals lost the final of the Friends Provident Trophy and Twenty20 Cup last season and ended up surrendering their top flight status in the Championship.

The memories of two weeks in October in India at the Champions League, should they qualify, will be nothing more than that if Sussex are planning trips to Leicester and Northampton rather than Old Trafford and the Riverside next season.

Only skipper Mike Yardy displayed the necessary application during a horrible morning for Sussex when they lost seven wickets for 86 runs.

Thorp picked up three of them by the simple virtue of bowling a fuller length and allowing the ball to swing. Yardy, 54 not out overnight, was heading for his third century of the season until a daft piece of cricket from Ollie Rayner in the last over before lunch.

Yardy played a ball from Ian Blackwell off the glove and was called through for a run which would have been tight even if Dale Benkenstein had not run round from backward short leg, turned and knocked out the off stump at the non-striker’s end with a direct hit.

Yardy’s expression as he trudged back, his glare fixed firmly on his team-mate sheepishly following 40 yards behind him, told the story. Rayner tried his best to make amends by adding 40 runs for the ninth wicket with Collymore before Thorp returned to complete his first five-for of the season but the damage had been done.

Ed Joyce’s 36 was the next highest score after Yardy’s 97 and he only added four runs yesterday after retiring hurt on the second evening when Harmison struck him on the elbow.

By 2.45pm Sussex were following on and soon lost Yardy when he toe-ended a drive in Mark Davies’s first over.

Joyce mis-judged the length of Ian Blackwell’s fourth ball and lost his off stump to the left-arm spinner before Thorp returned after tea to make two crucial interventions in successive overs.

Chris Nash had played well for his fifth half-century of the season which included 11 fours but once again he failed to go on, getting a thin nick to another ball of fullish length.

There was little Murray Goodwin could do about the vicious break back which he inside-edged to the keeper but 19 runs in two innings here took his aggregate for the season to a miserable 205 from 15 innings.

When Carl Hopkinson was trapped in front by Davies’s off-cutter a three-day defeat looked on the cards but Wright and Hodd battened down the hatches and Wright showed he was happy to take on the short ball when Steve Harmison peppered him at the end of the day.

He reached his second half-century of the season but it looks nothing more than futile resistance and Robinson and Yardy will have plenty to ponder on the A1 today with Sussex’s next Championship game against Nottinghamshire at Horsham looming on Wednesday.