Fantastic last minute win for the Demons against Beckenham

The Demons had a tough start to the season with a home fixture against local rivals Beckenham with a young side featuring 18 year olds Alex Baker and Stan Tume who were making their senior league debuts. As expected the visitors started strongly and had plenty of territory but the Demons defence was as usual very strong keeping their line safe. Ali Barker making his return to Rugby after 4 years out linked the forwards and backs really well and with Will Spoor at 10 there were plenty of opportunities to get the talented backs on the front foot. Harvey Whyte showed his quality and he helped Stan ad Alex settle into the game.They took the lead with a well taken try by Ali Barker which he also converted. 7-0.
Unfortunately more or less from the restart Beckenham put Darts under pressure and forced a penalty which the converted to close the gap to 7-3. The pack looked quite experienced with a strong front row of Billy Wilson, Max Mason ans Bexley Uwaibi who held their own in the scrum and with Lewis Barratt, Tom Adams and John O'Brien giving line out options and Dan Sweeney was everywhere making sure he put pressure on the attackers . It was a pretty even and competitive match but it was again the Demons who put the next points on the board with Tom Nichols who went over for the team's second try. 12-3. Yet again this seemed to liven up the visitors and they came straight back with a penalty to take the score to 12-6. Beckenham had a quick and strong set of backs and the Demons needed to be on their guard but when the ball went wide Dom Fisher and Max Nissinen-le dealt with the threats. The Demons ended the half in the lead in what was a very entertaining game of rugby.
The second half started with young Josh Doherty , Ryan Geogeghan and George McClachlan coming on and whilst the team were reorganising Beckenham put together some good phases which led to a converted try which gave them the lead for the first time. 12-13. Darts started to play some good interphase rugby using the backs and forwards and pushed play into the Beckenham 22 and forcing a line out. A great take and drive moved the ball closer to the line and after another phase the ball was popped to Billy Wilson who crashed over under the posts. Ali converted. 19-13. The Demons seemed to be quite comfortable now and their confidence was good with some great runs by Max and George and young Josh was tackling way above his weight to go with his pace. A unforced penalty allowed Beckenham to convert a penalty to close the gap to 19-16. Unfortunately a misstimed kick gave the ball away and Beckenham used their experience to move the ball well from the 10 metre line to well inside the 22 and then used good phase play to score out wide. In the process Dom was yellow carded for a poor timed tackle. Beckenham take the lead 19-21. This could have been a blow for the young Darts team but when Beckenham tried to run the ball out from their 22 a long pass was intercepted by Harvey who ran under the posts and Ali converted to regain the lead. 26-21. Beckenham worked really hard to take advantage of the extra man but brave defence by the entire team looked like it may hold them out but a silly penalty allowed Beckenham to kick deep into the Demons 22 for touch and the drive scored the try. 26-26. The Demons desperately worked hard to win the match and theor hard work was rewarded when they forced a penalty on the 22 just left of the post. Ali stepped up and coolly slotted the winning score 29-26.
A great match to start the season and probably the home side just deserved the win.