Old Colfeians 3’s V Darts 2’s

After a 4 week layoff Darts travelled to Colfeians eager to get on back on the pitch and continue their great run of form.
Having arrived early and warmed up well both sides were ready to get stuck into each other only for the ref to delay the match will he did some fartleg warm up exercises.
OC’s looked like a much changed side to the one we had faced at home back in December and so it proved as soon as we kicked off. In the early exchanges their forwards proved a handful at the breakdown and the centres look strong with the ball in hand. The first 10 minutes were fairly nip & tuck but Darts then won a penalty inside the OC’s half and Richie Hope stepped up and slotted over a 3 pointer, in what was to be a near perfect place kicking display.
After 15 minutes some goods hands saw Jake Dyke out wide, managed to draw the defender and pass to Babs Ojo who was left with a one on one with his opposite number. There was only going to be one result and Babs dotted down after a 30 metre run in, Hope added the extras.
The move from fly half to inside centre was push the evergreen Tony mead to his limit and on the half hour mark it all proved too much. OC’s scrum half looked at him the wrong way and a flurry of punches later the pair were sent to the cooler for a 10 minute reflation.
Darts pack were in the ascendency in the set piece, with the front five working hard at scrum time to win several balls against the head and if anything the lineout with going even better with Jake in particular proving a real handful at 2 spoiling most of the oppos lineout ball. However it wasn’t until the stroke of half time that this pressure paid dividends and our very own over fed Maori. FPW to his mates was making his return after a serious eating condition had side-lined him for several months, after a strong Darts scrum he dived on the ball like it was a free pie, and Hope added the conversion. 24 – 0 at half time.
The 2nd half started fairly slowly until 10 minutes in when FPW latched on to the ball the tail of a catch and drive and burrowed over; Hope added extras.
PFW was involved again 10 minutes later when he put the Phil “the snail” Delafosse in for what must have been the slowest run in ever seen, Hope converted.
5 minutes later a great interception by our punchy number 10 saw some excellent handling as the passed through 6 or 7 pairs of hands to end up in Liam Bolgers hands who cut a great line to dot down under the posts & Hope obliged once again.
A few minutes later FPW was at it again and scored after some fine goal hanging, Hope kicked extras again.
The last try of the match was a truly team effort and was duly finished by Chris Fox but Hope missed the extra, what a schmuck!
This was probably the best team performance of the season and not only did we keep OC’s from scoring but the pressue we put them under meant that they we unable to string too many passages of play together and gain any momentum.
Man of the Match would have gone to Harry Weepu but what hasn’t been revealed until now is that FPW crossed the line 5 times in the match but due to his very poor upper body strength he was judged to have been held up over the line on 2 occasions.

Scorers
Try
Fat Piri Weepu (3)
Babs Ojo (2)
Phil the Snail
Liam Bolger
Chris Fox

Penalty
Hope (1)

Conversion
Hope (7)