Darts 2’s V Basildon 2’s

After the 1st XV’s impressive showing against Tunbridge Wells in the cup last week, it was time for the 2’s to lay down their marker for the season.

The game really was a tale of 4 quarters as fortunes fluctuated as each 20 minute period unfolded.

Darts 2’s arrived at the club expecting a tough match against a club who are a league higher in the respective division and warmed up with purpose & enthusiasm in readiness for a bruising encounter.
Both teams were ready for the off when the ref announced that he had lost his whistle but it was ok he knew it was in the changing room along with his 3 other back up whistles! One can only wonder what our very own Phil Randall made of this auspicious start as Phil was on the touchline in an official capacity assessing said ref.

Anyway the first quarter kicked off in earnest and Darts sought to impose themselves early on and within a couple of minutes had engineered their first score of the season when debutant Billy Wilson broke a tackle and offloaded nicely to Chris Bolton to score from a metre out for with Steve Goodacre slotting home the conversion. 7 – 0

Some further good work at the set piece and break down saw the backs have some good quality ball and a further 2 converted tries were scored. The whistle blew for the end of the quarter and Darts were 21 – 0 up and looking good.

However it was during the water break that the Ref announce that Basildon were unable to contest the scrums as they were without front row cover, in fact they had to even rope in one of their old boys who lives locally to Darts & who’s son played for us.
Darts also lost Steve Goodacre & Chris Boulton to the 1’s who were having a nightmare with injuries in the first half.
The 2nd quarter saw Darts continue to have the majority off possession and although they couldn’t quite impose themselves as strongly as the first period they still managed a further 3 tries & conversions.
Half time 42 – 0.

As the 3rd period started Darts seemed to lose their way somewhat & added to some poor discipline along white line fever things turned against them.
It is credit to Basildon who potentially were looking at a cricket score, that their game improved as their team recovered from the blitz that hit them in the 1st half and they started to win some decent ball and test the Darts defence.
This quarter saw possession pass between the 2 sides frequently and the as it drew to a close some sloppy defence & Basildons’ never say die attitude, Basildon were rewarded with a try, which went unconverted.

A few pointers & home truths at the end of the 3rd quarter from the coaches at half time saw a marked improvement in Darts performance in the 4th quarter. This may have been due to coach Biffo laying down some markers and incentives for the final 20 minutes. Namely that if they could score 3 tries then the beers would be on him!
As the game got back under way Darts really upped their game it being a rather hot & humid day the promise of free ice cold Dartfordians own brand lager proved irresistable.
Coach Biffo could see what was coming and moved the goal posts massively. Adding that he wanted to see no forward walking to the break down for the remainder of the match!
This was gonna be tough, even after a hard pre-season thanks to Ed Youngs brutal regeime. It must be noted that we had both Big Martin and our infamous fat ugly prop (with good hair) on the field as well as the evergreen Gavin “Boycie” Renno who is in the autumn of his career.

With the forwards giving their all and with the cold beers in sight it proved too much and something had to give and sure enough Big Martin was felled like a mighty oak & once he had got enough breath back to explain claiming a shoulder injury, we moved him to the side line & filled in the resulting crater so play could continue.
Now you would think as long as Boycie could keep trotting and our FUP could keep tiptoeing over the try line (he did score 3 unfortunately) the beer was good as in the bank!
Alas with Big Martin removed we had no option but to reintroduce Paul Brown who had stepped up admirably from the relative comfort of the Saints. However it’s never that simple is it? Now Browny as he is imaginatively know had been at the Saints team building event at the club the previous evening followed by an impromptu visit to a local nightspot with the result that he didn’t find his bed until 4am.
The forwards stuck manfully to their task and looked to the lineout to get some go forward ball and suck in the oppo’s forwards and at the same time the backs started to run some better lines and cause their defence some problems. With some good scores coming as a dividend for the endeavour the team actually managed to score a further 4 tries, exceeding the target set but Cliffy.

In summary a good first outing by all players involved, new captain Sam Rowe grew in stature (he wished) as the game went on and there were some good individual performances & some impressive club debuts to boot.
We managed to look at combinations of players and work through the set plays that all the coaches are trying to implement through out the club this season so a lot of positives.
Although there will undoubtedly much stiffer opposition in the coming weeks & months overall this was a positive team performance with much more to come and we all look forward to the coming season.

P.S.

For those readers who are interested coach Biffo/Cliffy/Regnier welched on him promise of free beer and the boys all went home thirsty!

Scorers from the below (administrative error prevents correct tally!)

Tries
Chris Boutlon - 1
Sam Medhurst – 1
Paul Brown – 1
Tyler Roberts -1
Sam Rowe (capt.) – 1
George McClellen – 2
FUP – 3

Conversions
Steve Goodacre – 1
Tom Mangham - 1
AN Other - 6