Dartmouth RFC 7,

Dartmouth were at home to the Kingsbridge II team this week in the South Hams Cup, which is a competition between all five South Hams Clubs: Dartmouth, Ivybridge, Kingsbridge, Salcombe and Totnes.

Each club is represented by a handle on the cup and whenever its holder meets one of the other clubs, home or away, the cup is up for grabs.

Kingsbridge brought a strong second XV to Dartmouth with the aim of holding on to the ­trophy, but the home side were keen to make sure it did not leave Dartmouth at the day’s end.

Dartmouth started strongly and had an early chance from a penalty, with Jake Chapman at fly half narrowly missing the opportunity. However, due to a poorly executed 22-yard drop-out, Dartmouth were still able to pile on the pressure and from a scrum deep in the Kingsbridge half, scrum half Jack Clark put his brother Tom in for a try, which was duly converted by Chapman – 7-0 to Dartmouth.

The game now became rather defensive, with both teams unable to create an opening. The heavier and more experienced Dartmouth pack was ruling the scrum and the lighter Kingsbridge pack was having the better of things in the line-out.

In the 20th minute Dartmouth captain Karl Caunter made a great tackle to stifle a Kingsbridge attack, but that led to him needing to leave the field for treatment, to be replaced by Jai Prettyjohns.

On the stroke of half-time Kingsbridge, following a spell of prolonged attack, seemed certain to score, but a last-ditch tackle from Chapman ­prevented the ball from being grounded, from which a scrum was awarded and the superior Dartmouth eight were able to win the ball and clear into touch.

The second half was mostly played in the Dartmouth half with their strong scrummaging being nullifed by injuries to the Kingsbridge front row, resulting in uncontested scrums. This led to Dartmouth having to dig deep and up their tackle count, where the back row of Jamie Kearney, Tom Clarke and Jack Stirk proved up to the challenge, restricting Kingsbridge to a couple of long-range penalty attempts. Dartmouth used their full bench during the second half, with all players contributing to a hard-earned win, the final score being 7-0.

Dartmouth would like to thank committee member Lee Chase, who stepped in to referee the game when the appointed referee was unable to attend.

Dartmouth are at home to a Teignmouth II team next week, with kick-off at 2.45pm.