Dartford Valley away

This week the mighty red and blue once again headed towards the capital, this time the opposition was in the form of Dartford Valley.

After a quick pit stop @ Medway services so to pick up full back Gareth Bramwell the lads were back on the road in the official Snowdown RFC minibus.

Player/coach Steve Richards could not believe how quick the forwards were out pitch side with it perfect lineout formation props at the front 2nds rows ready to run in...... What he didn't realise was, it was the queue for the pitch side bar

That's right upon arrival the lads immediately found that Dartford had laid out a pitch side BBQ and mobile bar (take note freedom).

But to the lads dismay the coach did not succumb to the side idea of a pre match pint and quickly ordered them through their paces.

With the team ready, and the toss won, the game began.

It was clear from the off that this Dartford team were well up for the game with big hits and strong runs being made all round the park. Much to the enjoyment of the on looking crowd.

But it wasn't long before the red and blue hoops were on the scoreboard with an early try - missed conversion.

Dartford however eager to impress their large home crowd (which also included the mayor of Dartford - as it was there VP's day) came straight back at Snowdown with a well worked try sucking in defenders and scoring out wide.

This however is not how the game went on....

The colliery side grew into the game relishing tackling the big hard running opposition and playing some slick rugby in return, scoring numerous try's with all bar one being converted by Snowdown's number 7 Chris Frost.

With 25mins left to play Snowdown made 2 changes in the front with Gavin Ritson replacing Richard Blackburn and more notably after two and a half years away due to a serve case of manflu we also seen the return of the master of the dark arts himself, Ben Broadhurst replacing Steve Roberts. Great to have Ben back with us :-)

Apparently Snowdown's captain had a rare shocker of a game a fumbled a couple of very hard under pressure catches (I can not recall any of this) but the lads are certain that this definitely happened and promptly named Patrick with the most prestigious award of dick of the day.

After the game Dartford's President did admit that looking at their fixture list at the start of the season they seen the sunshine corner men as easy targets and thought they would have a runaway victory - hence the reason they organised their VP day against us. We obviously gave our apologise for causing an upset.

Dartford Valley 17 - Snowdown 55 - UP THE COLLIERY!!!!!!

Dartford were great hosts on the day and we look forward to returning the favour at the spinney lane stadium.

The only down side to the day was that new up and coming signing Ben Hewer went off injured in the first half with what we now know a Broken collar bone :-( the club wishes Ben all the best and a speedy recovery.

Bonjour for now