Heathfield secured an away bonus point win in this Championship 2 league contest to keep them in a pleasingly high position in this very competitive league.
Conditions were good – a rain shower freshened everyone up during the warmup but otherwise it was a dry day with no significant wind and even an occasional sighting of an object that some with long memories call the sun.
In some early exchanges Heathfield looked a good side as they went through several phases with good ball retention. In due course they were adjudged to have been held up in the left hand corner. Dartford immediately showed that they were up for the contest and worked their way back up field.
However after nearly 15 minutes good scrum possession was worked wide left and from the resulting breakdown no 8 Georgia Reed-Davies charged over on the left hand side to open the scoring.
Then a few minutes later an attacking lineout was uncontested by Dartford and Laura McGee happily dived through a wrong-footed defence for another, albeit again unconverted, try.
The home side started to build some pressure back into the visitors’ half which led to a yellow card for Steph Chipps for an indiscretion at the breakdown. Dartford had an extended period of play around the visitors’ 22 and at times were within the 5m line. A combination of good defence and some final inaccuracy prevented any scoring until, with about 30 minutes on the clock, good ruck ball was moved into midfield for a home centre to touch down by the posts, duly converted,
Heathfield soon returned to the other end and, in a possibly critical moment, a home player was now binned, reportedly for a late tackle on Lib Lawrence. In the last few minutes of the half Heathfield exploited the extra player with two tries. First Steph Chipps boshed her way over from a lineout and then Lawrence benefitted from some confusion following a penalty from a scrummage to dive under the posts for the bonus point try. The successful conversion produced the half time score of 7-22.
My crude stats have one possible reason for Heathfield’s advantage at this stage as these showed that they had dominated the set piece thus far. Both scrum and lineout had been faultless for them while the home side had rarely secured their own ball in either phase. Dartford made a change to their front row at this point and their scrum was thereafter solid. The referee also commented that Heathfield had been more effective at the breakdown with several important turnovers.
The early part of the second half was odd – to me anyway. After about 15 minutes I still hadn’t made any notes as most of the game was in midfield with neither side in control.
Eventually Heathfield worked their way into the left hand corner and a tap penalty looked to have produced a try but it was adjudged to have been held up. Then a good run by Reed-Davies, carried on impressively by skipper Velvet Turner produced a huge overlap on the left hand side allowing Ella Vawer to cleverly put Britt Mole in for an excellent team try.
Heathfield were now looking dangerous and Turner continued her audition as a winger with a strong run up the left hand touchline. This led to serious pressure on the home try line before replacement Abi Bandtock was held up over the try line. Bandtock also made some typically strong runs along with being part of the mostly dominant Heathfield front row along with Amber Lovick, Dave Flowers and Chipps.
Dartford had the last (scoring) word as scrum ball was worked wide for their right winger to finish well in the corner, capped by an impressive conversion with ten minutes remaining.
In the last few minutes each side collected a yellow card as the game became a little fractious. For the visitors Vawer, who otherwise had a very decent game, was penalised for a high tackle.
While the final score is in line with expectations given the relative league positions, this is slightly unkind to Dartford as this was a seriously well-contested game as evidenced by the multiple injury replacements throughout for both sides. But this is only to be expected at level three nationally where one would expect a proper contest.
This was an unusual Heathfield side in that regular skipper Carol Saunders was elsewhere (reportedly dealing with football supporters (!?) at the Amex) so it is good to see the side performing well without her usual key interventions. I can’t remember a previous Heathfield back row without Saunders or Taylor.
There was general agreement that Lauren Duly had been a standout performer in her unaccustomed role of second row. While scarcely matching the normal 2nd row specifications – 6ft+ etc – she had a huge game with dynamic tackles and carries. There were also honourable mentions for Ellie Phillipse and Lawrence amongst others.
Heathfield are next due to welcome Blackheath on 22 Feb although this has to be in doubt given recent results for that team. Otherwise the next game for this promising side will not be until 8 Mar when Heathfield will look to put the record straight against Old Alleynians.