Rugby
| SWAP SHOPPER |  | | | | | YOUR SPACE | | | | | | RETRO | | | | | OUR YOUNG STARS | | |
|
|
|
Darts sign off with win
Askeans 10-17 Dartfordians
DARTFORDIANS entered their last match of the season with a number of changes to the team and the move paid off with victory at Askeans.
Jason Wotherds made his debut at tight head prop with a total of seven Dartfordians props unavailable for this game.
However, a welcome return to half back by Martin Truong and Tony Mead gave the backs a more solid set up.
The game started in appalling conditions with a huge wind and hailstones bombarding both teams.
With Darts playing against the elements, it was important to keep the game tight and control the ball.
The first 10 minutes were a shocker as both sides gave away easy ball and from a poor kick against the wind, the ball bounced kindly for Darts.
Phil Delafosse picked up the loose ball and raced the length of the field to be tackled 15 yards short, but fortunately support was with him and Dan Phillips picked up possession and scored an unconverted try.
Askeans then missed a penalty but Darts started to look comfortable, winning good scrum and lineout ball.
From nowhere Askeans had a good driving maul and although a smaller pack, they managed to drive over the line to score an unconverted try.
Darts then started to pressure the home side and Tony Mead sold two dummies and scored a great try, but unfortunately hit the post with the conversion.
The visitors continued to press but couldn't add to their scoere.
Askeans belied their league position and put Darts under pressure just prior to the interval and scored a try from a driving maul to make it 10-10 at half-time.
With the elements in their favour, Darts were hoping to stretch away in the second half but Askeans continued to harry and tackle well so the visitors couldn't get any continuity to their play.
There were some good moves down the blind side with great Martin Truong sniping runs, but too many times silly free-kicks were given away and possession squandered. The game started to become very scrappy with both sides guilty of silly errors and the referee became the busiest person on the pitch.
Darts eventually made a breakthrough and it looked like Rogers had scored in the corner, only for the referee to disallow the try.
The visitors then replaced the injured Jarman with stalwart Simon Laws making his first start of the season for the first team, while Jack Phillips replaced Dan Rogers. Some more good possession then saw captain Ricky Phillips score a good try under the posts, which was converted by Tony Mead.
It all became a bit of a farce in the final 10 minutes as Askeans had their scrum half and Darts had both Couchman and Gubby sin binned.
The match petered out, but overall Darts deserved their win and ended the season in fifth position in the league.
2:04pm Tuesday 15th April 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
