DARTFORDIANS celebrated their 85th anniversary with a home match against Beccehamians.

Having said a sad farewell to Phil Mills, who sadly passed a way last week, the club had a terrific lunch with the large crowd anticipating a great match in perfect rugby playing conditions.

Darts started cautiously, remembering their last game against the visitors was a heavy defeat when the club was relegated fro the London leagues.

After 10 minutes of testing each other out, Darts became the dominant team, winning ball in the set pieces and in the loose.

Good pressure from Darts saw them attacking inside the visitors 22 and form this Becs eventually gave away a penalty, which was quickly taken by the impressive Garry Jarman, who crashed his way over the line.

The try which was converted by Tom Griggs, making his first team debut at fly half.

Darts had made numerous changes to their line-up but this didn’t seem to phase them at all, with man of the match John Bucksey dominating loose play and picking up all the scraps around the park.

Becs pressured Darts but from the lineout Chris Nathanael was quick to see an opportunity to intercept the ball and sprinted 50m to score Darts’ second try, again converted by Griggs.

Darts were now rampant and the backs were looking confident with ball in hand despite the changes to their formation.

John Colmer and Babs Ojo were linking well.

With the forwards winning ball all over the pitch, it was only time before another try was scored, this time by Roots in the corner following great hands by all the backs.

The crowd were really enjoying the match and looking for further scores and they weren’t disappointed with both Jarman and Nathanael scoring tries and Griggs converting both, as well as slotting over as penalty to make it 36-0 at half-time.

Playing up the slope and with a slight breeze in their faces, Darts continued to pressure the visiting defence and were using their backs to great effect and looking like they would for the first time this season convert their pressure into points.

By this time, the confidence was so high everybody was looking to get their hands on the ball and the support play was fantastic.

Paul Brown and Gav Renno were all about the park and Matt Edwards was winning everything in the lineout and numerous moves from these resulted in Darts making ground every time.

Props Tim Stagg and Chris Roots were also getting into the game and from superb piece of play the ball went through 10 pairs of hands before Brown went over for his first try for the club.

Danny Taylor, who was having another great game, also scored another fine try when the forwards and backs combined brilliantly for the try.

Jarman completed his hat-trick when, picking up at No 8 from a five metre scrum, he had no opposition to easily score.

With 15 minutes to go, Darts started to tire a little and lose their focus.

Becs, to their credit, continued to battle and scored a well-worked try to finish the scoring.