Darts close the quality gap on Bourne

12:11pm Tuesday 7th October 2008

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Sittingbourne 18-10 Dartfordians

HAVING conceded 120 points in their two matches last season against Sittingbourne, it is a measure of the improvement in Dartfordians to come away very disappointed at losing a close encounter by eight points.

After two good wins, Darts were confident going onto the field but more or less straight from the kick off skipper Scott Truss charged down a clearing kick to score under the posts and with the conversion, gift the home side a seven point advantage.

For the next 10 minutes, Darts were at sixes and sevens and Sittingbourne scored another try wide out having stretched the visitors with good continuity rugby.

Trailing 12-0, it looked like Darts' bogey side were going to repeat last season's thrashings.

The difference this season is confidence is greater and the visitors suddenly started to exert pressure, pushing the home side back into their own half with John Bucksey leading the charge.

Sittingbourne's continuity and open play was still very good and it needed great defence from Darts to keep them in check.

But despite playing into a strong wind, Darts looked good value to score the next points which they did when continual infringements by the defence gave Tony Mead an easy kick to get the score back to 10-3.

Unfortunately for Darts, the interpretation of the ruck law is still difficult to interpret from one referee to another and Sittingbourne then scored a penalty to make it 15-3.

Darts continued to press hard and despite continual pressure on the opposition five metre line, they could not score again before half-time.

Dan Rogers left the field at the break with a bad gash to his head to was replaced by Ben Crouch The second half became a procession of attacks by Darts and against any other team, they would probably have scored more than enough points to win this match.

Time and time again Sittingbourne's defence did everything they needed to stop the relentless attacks from Darts.

On reflection, maybe a few of the penalties could have been kicked by Darts, but they continued to have faith in their ability to eventually break down the stubborn defence.

With 20 minutes to go, Mead made a superb break through the middle of the back line defence to score under the posts and convert the try to make it 15-10.

Despite having 80 percent of the possession and territory, Darts still couldn't break through again.

On occasions, their desperation to score made them choose the wrong options.

Pushing everyone forward and leaving gaps at the back, Darts lost possession and from the resulting pressure, were forced to give away a penalty which was converted to make the outcome safe for the hosts.