David Butt

Memorial Trophy

With the trophy now into round three, Dart­mouth were hosting a home game against Totnes from Devon One, a league higher that Dartmouth, but the hosts were confident they could get a win and keep their cup destiny in their own hands.

Dartmouth had a strong squad to pick from, with most of the new players now signed on and available to play, the only not­able absentee being club player-coach Tom Clark, who was attending a wedding.

Now that Dartmouth have a good selection of players to pick from, the selection gets harder, but Dartmouth are going to try and use the bench to their advantage this year and use all 20 players during the game where appropriate.

Dartmouth started with the wind at their backs and were soon deep in the Totnes half, which is where they stayed for most of the first period.

However, they were unable to turn the pressure into tries as Totnes defended well and opportunities were squandered with forward passes or knock ons.

This meant all that Dartmouth had to show for a spirited first half was two penalty goals from the boot of Luke Bonstow.

As they turned round at half time, the Dartmouth players knew they should have been further ahead, but were committed to keeping the ball to hand, defending well and not allowing Tot­nes any chances.

But just as last week away to OPMs, Totnes scored a try within a few minutes of the half-time break, with the Dartmouth team guilty of some slack tackling.

The only consolation was that Totnes were unable to convert the two extra points, so Dartmouth still had the lead 6-5.

But with the wind behind their backs, Totnes were now in a dominant spell and quickly added to their tally with a further try to make the score 10-6 to the away team.

After some tough talking from skipper John Dingle and a plethora of changes from the Dartmouth bench, the tide was stemmed and a period of relative calm ensued.

Neither side were able to break the deadlock until Tot­nes took advantage of a Dart­mouth transgression and added a further three points to the score.

With the home team trailing 13-6 Dartmouth had a penalty, which stand-off Luke Chase was able to send down deep into Totnes territory.

From the line-out, after a text book catch and drive, hooker Nick Shillabeer went over for the try, but from way out on the touch line with the wind against him, Bon­stow was unable to add the extra two points.

With 10 minutes to go, all was to play for, but Dartmouth were unable to stop falling foul of the referee and handed Totnes a further three penalties, one of which they converted for a final score of 16-11 to the visiting side.

While Dartmouth can still progress in this cup competition, they will now have to rely on other results going their way.

Dartmouth are away to Salcombe on Satur­day in round four of the David Butt Memo­rial Trophy competition, kick-off 3pm at Twomeads.