Great start to the New Year for Darts

Darts started the New Year with a tough match against Crowborough who inflicted a defeat against us at their home ground earlier in the season. The match started in cold but otherwise perfect conditions and it was the visitors who got into their stride from the off and Darts looked as though they had left their individual and team skills at home. With Crowborough moving the ball really well stretching play from side to side it was fortunate that Darts had their tackling heads on to keep them at bay but it was looking inevitable that with their ball retention and offloading that they would score and it was a delicate chip through behind the Darts defrence which saw their winger race in to score in the corner. 0-5. Eventually Dart got things together and started to put some phases together which gave them confidence and they added more pace to everything they did and after some great interplay between forwards and backs Harvey managed to secure an overlap for Jonny to score in the corner. 5-5. Play was now being made inside the visitors 22 with play only occasionally entering the Darts half. When play was inside their own half it was Miles who making some great snipes close to the breakdown and one break took him deep into opposition 22. Darts ford=ced a penalty and follwong some good defensive work in the lineout Darts opted for the scrum which they won cleanly and after a couple of phses to tie the defence in the ball was moved wide to put Clement over out wide. A great conversion took the score to 12-5. Crowborough continued to try and play the ball wide but it was sharp thinking by Harvey who anticipated the ball being passed out of the back to intercept and race in from half way. Jonny again converted. 19-5. This knocked the stuffing out of the young Crowborough team and Darts took control ensuring they didn't
give the ball away cheaply. Miles was at centre of everything drawing the defence intp narrow positions which allowed Darts to get the ball out wide and when it was passed to Elliot he beat his man on the outside before popping the ball back inside to Jonny who went over just prior to half time for the bonus point . Jonny's conversion ended the half 24-5 to Darts against a team who had only lost one match this season.
Crowborough came out for the second half playing down the slight slope and immediately went on the attack continuing their style of play and this forced Darts to concede a number of penalties and when they took a scrum in front of the posts they manoevered the ball to score their second try. 24- 10. Darts then hit back straight from the kick off attacking the restart and forcing a spill from two of the visiting catchers, this ball was pounced upon by skipper Lewis who set up a ruck before the ball was sent out to the backs who were looking confident and when the visitors conceded a penalty 5 metres out Darts took the scrum having brought on Billy at hooker to add a lot of strength to the front row. The scrum pushed the visitors back putting their whole defence on the backfoot before the ball was spun to Harvey who crashed over. Jonny converted. 31-10. Darts were now opening up at every opportunity and with Jonny pulling the stings at full back Briggow was happy to just let the ball out early. Harvey and Clement were making huge amount of ground with hard running breaking though tackles which ended up creating space again for Jonny to score another try and convert. 38-17. This should have finished off the visitors but thy kept coming back and after some great running lines they scored their third try and convert to take the final score to 38-17.
After a shaky start this was a tremendous performance and a young talented side with only one defeat all season. The experience of the home team showed witheir defensive work very solid and the control of ball outstanding. Jonny was Player of the Match with a great all round performance but everyone in the team contributed to this good win