Herald Cup

Dartmouth AFC reserves 4,

Dittisham United 0

Last Friday evening the Plums made the short trip back into town to face the in-form Division One Dartmouth AFC, who themselves were fresh from a summer of good quality arrivals.

The Plums knew the toughness of this Herald Cup clash, but also that this fixture would far from determine the outcome of their season.

They were buoyed by the return of Chris Fisher for the first time since their season opener, as well as goalkeeper Colin Rowdon after a week's absence, but were still without Marcus Copeman.

From the kick-off Dartmouth asserted themselves on the game and this was to be the story of the match as they put early and constant pressure on the Dittisham backline.

Goalkeeper Colin Rowden was in fantastic form, pulling off a number of wonderful low saves to keep the Plums in the match.

Dittisham tried to stay as compact as possible to stop the onslaught of Dartmouth's midfield runners, who were starting to put some neat moves together.

Darts were thwarted, for the first 20 minutes at least, by the backline of captain Martyn, Bastin, Fisher and Partridge.

Ditts did look dangerous at times on the counter-attack, but lacked that final pass or bit of movement needed to penetrate the very strong and organised Dartmouth defence. 

The midfield pairing of Blamey and Rowden, assisted by widemen Hogbin and Kirby, worked tirelessly to try and cope with the excellent movement of the Dartmouth players.

Forwards Vicary and Bruckner worked hard to try and drop back in and give the defence and midfield some extra protection.

Despite Dartmouth's dominance of the first half, the Plums went into the break only two goals down with a good chance of a fightback in the second half.

That hope was wiped out within 10-15 minutes of the restart when Dartmouth struck again to put themselves in a commanding position of the tie. 

Dartmouth's retention of the ball was very good, which meant that the Plums were constantly chasing and trying to win the ball back. Ultimately the tired legs of the Dittisham players meant that at times it was very difficult to get out of their own half.

Nevertheless, during the game Dittisham didn't just defend and did manage a couple of good efforts on goal themselves.

The first was a 25-yard effort from Joe Kirby that smashed against the crossbar, which was followed shortly after by substitute Soper, who found himself in the box with the 'keeper to beat, only to see his low effort dragged wide.

With Dartmouth closing out the game they struck again with a fantastic free-kick from Frost that left 'keeper Rowden with no chance and sealed the game for Dartmouth.

Despite this convincing defeat, there are plenty of positives for the Plums, who can take encouragement from a hard fought and impressive team performance.

The energy and intensity of their performance paired with their togetherness in an extremely tough situation is something to be proud of and a real positive moving forward.