Totnes RFC 20

Dartmouth hosted their vice presidents' day last Saturday writes Jeff Hunt.

After lunch, the VPs were invited to watch Dartmouth take on Totnes in a friendly (is there such a thing?).

It was nice to see Aaron Hunt back in his familiar full-back position and nice to see another new face, Sean Lewis from Stoke Fleming, who will be a good asset to the ever increasing playing squad for Dartmouth.

Dartmouth started much the better in this local derby and Jamie Kearney was rewarded with his first try for the Riversiders with just eight minutes gone.

Dartmouth had a line-out on Tots' 10-metre line, Dartmouth winning the ball and setting their unstoppable rolling maul.

Skipper John Dingle popped the ball to Jamie from the back of the maul and, still with a bit of work to do, Kearney pushed his way over the opposition's line.

Richard Lobb step­ped up to take the other two points for the conversion and Dart­mouth had the first bragging rights for the afternoon.

Eight minutes later Totnes were on the score sheet to bring the scores level.

Things stayed all square for the first 25 minutes then Karl Caunter received the ball going through the Dartmouth's back line and powered his way over the white wash to keep the advantage Dartmouth's way.

Five minutes later Totnes were awarded a penalty which they decided to kick and get to make the score 12 points to 10. Dartmouth kept the pressure on Totnes and the River­siders won a scrum against the head.

This time Dart­mouth's scrum-half got the ball out to the three-quarters and Richard Lobb finished a well worked try.

He successfully slotted the extras to bring the score to 19 points to 10, which was the score at half time.

The half-time talk from John Dingle was to ask the Dartmouth lads to keep the intensity up because Totnes will come back in the second half.

Totnes did just that and with just two minutes gone scored a drop goal. They kept pressing in the second half, but Dartmouth were in no mood to give this game away and on the 70th minute Jamie Kearney was on the score sheet again.

Dartmouth pushed Totnes back on the five-metre line and Kearney powered his way over for his second of the afternoon.

Totnes weren't going away without a fight and came back five minutes later with a try and a conversion of their own, making the last 10 minutes very tense for both teams.

However, Dartmouth eventually came away with a good win and a good warm up for when they are back in action this week at home against Plympton Victoria.

The game will start at 2.30pm and if you have nothing better to do this Saturday come along and see some good expansive rugby played.