Snowball Drives Darlington Forward

From The Northern Echo. Copyright Tim Wellock.

The arrival of Australian No 8 Kris Ward and the return to action of newly-wed Richard Snowball gave Darlington the impetus to brush aside previously unbeaten Alnwick.

Ward has scored two tries in both of his appearances since heeding the advice of his Australian clubmate Dave Tunstead to sample the pleasures of Blackwell Meadows.

Before returning home last year the turbo-charged prop used to shed tacklers like Autumn leaves and Ward used his similarly low slung centre of gravity to bounce off opponents as though they were minor irritants.

Not that he needed to bounce off anyone for his first try as the Alnwick defence obligingly parted to allow him to surge through from 15 metres to score by the posts.

That was the only one of the six tries which Henry Carver converted, although he did add a simple penalty on the stroke of half-time for a 13-7 lead.

After going 10-0 ahead in the 12th minute Darlington lost their way and despite the four second half tries they left the impression that there is much room for improvement.

Too much ball was kicked away at half back and there was little attempt to involve full back Connor Esler, a prolific scorer last year, while the flying Fijian winger Jese Nawacalevu never received a pass.

His compatriot Kemueli Tagicakivanua is likely to be required at scrum half at Acklam next week as Mark Baldwin ended the game with a torn calf muscle.

Alnwick, third for the last two seasons, arrived as Durham and Northumberland One leaders but couldn't win enough ball to make use of the pacy Shell brothers.

Right winger Andy, who scored 31 tries last season, burgled the try from a 70-metre interception which abruptly halted Darlington's flying start. Then centre Ed put in an impressively elusive run, but he hardly saw the ball again and was surprisingly substituted with 25 minutes left.

No-one else looked like scoring for Alnwick and on this evidence Darlington can again aim to go through the season with only an early defeat by Stockton.

They started with a simple try when Baldwin looped round right winger Matt Sowerby to find himself with a clear run from the 22.

With the driving maul continuing to be a favoured weapon, prop Joe Oselton finished off a catch-and-drive. But when Darlington tried to attack on the blind side instead of utilising the overlap the other way Andy Shell's interception stopped them in their tracks.

The rest of the first half was scrappy, but Ward's tries in the fifth and tenth minutes of the second period as good as settled it and made sure of the four-try bonus point.

Giant lock Chris Oakley finished off a driving maul for the fifth ten minutes from time and finally Sowerby took a pass from Baldwin to score on the right after a try in the left corner was wrongly denied by a touch judge.

As Snowball's influence grows with increasing match fitness, so will Darlington's scores, along with the determination to get out of this division