Tribute Devon Two

Dartmouth welcomed a Salcombe side to Nor­ton Playing Fields, keen to get a game in and throw off the frustrations of the cancellations the week before.

The Darts had a strong squad, with the Clark brothers making only their second ap­pearance together and captain John Dingle back in action.

They started strongly and after 13 minutes Jack Clark picked up from the back of a ruck just yards short of the Salcombe try line.

He feinted right but instead went through the middle of the prone bodies to score under the posts, Richard Lobb easily converting to make it 7-0 to Dart­mouth.

Despite almost constant pressure, their only other reward from the first half was two further penalties on 27 and 32 minutes that Lobb struck solidly through the uprights. The half-time score was 13-0 to the Darts.

In a stirring half-time chat, Dingle told the Dartmouth team to keep up the good work, but to try and turn their all-round dominance into further points and not to let Salcombe off the hook.

With those words ringing in their ears, the Dartmouth team started where they left off before the break.

Dartmouth’s endeavour earned them a Karl Caunter try from a sublime ‘show and go’ by Lobb early on, which was duly converted to make it 20-0 to the home side.

With no legal way to stop the unrelenting pressure, Salcombe were forced to concede a yellow card and 10 minutes in the bin.

Dartmouth shortly capitalised on the extra man and went over for their third try from Tom Clark, Lobb slotting the extras to bring the score to 27-0 to Dartmouth.

Further woes awaited Salcombe as in desperate attempt to halt the flow of points from the now-rampant Dart­mouth, a player was red carded for an attempted deliberate trip on Caunter, which reduced them to 13 men.

Unfortunately Dart­mouth were also pen­alised and yellow carded for alleged bad language to the referee, a point hotly denied by the Dartmouth player.

Now back to 14 men a side, Dartmouth scored a further try from Nick Shillabeer which Lobb converted to make the score 32-0 to the Darts with a try bonus point secured.

For the last 15 minutes of the game Dart­mouth’s concentration lapsed and Salcombe were able to score two consolation tries, one converted, for a final score of 32-12.

Even though the team were disappointed with the late tries that Salcombe scored, it was still a great performance, with the points secured moving Dartmouth up to joint first in the league and the South Hams Cup staying put in the Dart- mouth clubhouse.

There is no game this week, so Dartmouth’s next contest is away to fellow league leaders Buckfastleigh Ramblers on November 7.