Petroc division one

Dart 4

Dartmouth came up against a well-organised Dart Totnes side that are naturally hard to break down.

Dartmouth spurned a couple of good chan­ces in the first half, Sarah Barrett hitting the right-hand post and Lisa Hunt, having the ‘keeper to beat, just pushing the ball wide.

In addition, Lucy Pillar and Mandy Ser­van also came close.

However, it was to be Dart that broke the deadlock and they went in at half-time with a one-goal lead and the bragging rights in this competitive game.

Dartmouth came out for the second half all guns blazing but were lacking defensively and it didn’t take Dart long to work that out and quickly scored another.

Lucy Pillar had to make a couple of changes within 10 minutes of the restart and brought off Freya Bradley and Darcey Wall, replacing them with Becca Squires and Julie Pillar.

The substitution worked for a while but Dart hit back with a third with five minutes to go. Dartmouth didn’t give up and were un­lucky again with Lucy Pillar and Sarah Barrett going close, but Dart again hit back with a breakaway goal so it finished 4-0.

Dartmouth were up­beat about the game and took a lot of positives from the Dart team, which are well established and more mature than the average age of the youthful Dartmouth team.

Dart have better fa­cilities than Dart­mouth and again this showed. Juliette and Steve from the Old Inn served the teams with some much-needed hearty food, which was much ap­preciated.

The game was sponsored by Dev­on Care Group, a new sponsor to Dartmouth Hockey and a very welcome one. Devon Care Group support the elderly in Devon.