Dartfordians RFC II/III v Westcombe Park Gents

The Dartfordians II’s have three illustrious leaders working tirelessly behind the scenes this season. Sadly on this particular frosty Saturday morning, a Saturday morning that was to clash with an England game…. None of those three bothered to show up. Our injured management Toby (knee) and Rick (elbow and fat) were sadly unavailable, with Toby caught up with family commitments, and Ricky Phillips preferring to watch the first team. Gav Renno our previously ever present inspirational happy Captain, also sadly had to miss his first game, in part due to undergoing a vasectomy following the birth of his first child. These completely true facts, plus a misjudged text that I would ‘only be available if I was captain’ meant I was to captain my first Dartfordians side in at least 15 years.

Park Gents arrived with 13 men affected as we had been by the pre-agreed early kick off. We gave them Paul Gills, and immediately the Dartfordians mood was lifted. The toss was sadly lost and then came the team talk. Without Gav there to tell everyone that we’d be ‘all playing for the same team’, ‘wearing the same shirt’ and that there would be ‘scrums…. And sometimes lineouts’ there was a gaping hole that had to be bridged. I had to find some words from somewhere, I told Jon that his opposite centre was ‘massive’ and he was going to get ‘sat down’, then I seemed to black out for a minute, but when I came round it seemed that I had given the best pre match team talk there has ever been.

As with every game so far this season the twos opened sharply retaining the ball well with big carries from Rob Sweet, Joe Carey, Coshy and H moving us steadily into opposition territory. The lineout was also going well with Matt ‘Mantower’ Edwards making sure that we had a variety of lineout moves that ended with the ball always being thrown to him, usually at three and sometimes at four. This pressure led to Darts securing a good early lead through tries from Rob Sweet and Harry taking the ball on the loop from the line out.

Then again, as with every match so far this season, our organisation deserted us, we were knackered, and we fell apart for ten minutes. Harry forgot our one non-standard lineout move, the backs decided to try 10 consecutive chips down the middle, but most importantly the fourteen men of the gents were a different team with the ball in hand. They gained momentum with their big ball carriers offloading well, Jon Roots got sat down hard and the opposition scored a couple of good tries from open play. We went into half time deciding that we probably shouldn’t keep giving them the ball.

The second half started with Darts trying to bring some control back into our play, slow everything down and with the backs deciding to try moving the ball past Griggsy sometimes with Chris Fox and Joe Austen making yards and the ball retention vastly improved. The gents had worked us out by this point though and put together several strong driving mauls to set up their runners. Again though it was the line out and some good organised phases that proved the difference, providing the platform to add to our tally with Rob and Joe Carey scoring the tries from the back of the ruck. The offer of a slightly early finish to watch the international was gratefully accepted. Overall it was a good team performance, the second half organisation that has been lacking in some previous second team games seeing us through and some great performances from the Angels who stepped up on the day.

Finally everyone hopes Gav gets over his lack of balls and is back playing soon….. Oh and did I mention Jon got sat down? It was bad, he did a backwards roll…… really embarrassing.

Chris Roots