The North East | Archive | 2000 | April | 19
From the Northern Echo, first published Wednesday 19th Apr 2000.
DARLINGTON rugby club's investment in youth paid dividends on Saturday as 18-year-old scrum half Rob Stewart made his 1st XV debut and scored two crucial tries in their 24-18 victory over previously unbeaten Halifax.
He was aided and abetted by fellow 18-year-olds Tim Foster at fly half and Tony Taylor on the wing with 19-year-old record points scorer Marc Potts on the other wing.
Stewart and Foster, both England U18s clubs squad members, rekindled their half back partnership and played the full 80 minutes without putting a foot wrong. Taylor tackled his bigger opponent out of sight and Potts scored a try and kicked two conversions to take his points tally to 389 for the season.
Full back Mark Butler, now the rejuvenated senior citizen of the backs, also had a good game joining the line to set up the first try and scoring another down the blind side.
All this was only possible after the forwards had matched Halifax's power with speed, hitting the rucks together and winning ball for Darlington's young apprentices to ply their trade.
Darlington opened their account on seven minutes after second row Mark Turnbull caught a Halifax drop out from the 22. The ball was quickly worked left and Butler put Potts clear on the left. Things looked ominous as the big Halifax side came back with a converted try from a short penalty to go 7-5 ahead.
Darlington's firepower came back and on 27 minutes they surged into the Halifax 22 and Foster took recycled ball blind for Butler to cut in and score via the hands of flanker Martin Howe.
Shotly afterwards with the pressure still on Darlington were awarded a penalty five metres out and Stewart, showing initiative and speed of thought beyond his years, tapped and scampered through the retreating defence in a flash. Potts converted two out of the three for Darlington to turn round into the wind 19-7 ahead.
For ten minutes they lost concentration and gave ball, penalties and territory away and were punished as Halifax ran in their second try from a tap kick and pulled back to within seven points.
Stewart came to the rescue immediately from a set scrum on the half-way by picking up and jinking round his opposite number. With 40 metres to go he went round another man and then, having bamboozled his own team-mates as well, he had no choice but to pin back his ears and race for the line to score what was going to be the winning try.
Halifax clawed their way back into the game with two penalties and then blitzed the Darlington line for the last five minutes of injury time chasing the try and conversion that would keep their record intact.
All seemed lost as a Halifax centre dived over only to be hit simultaneously by Potts and Butler two feet above the ground and thrown back into play. The ball was killed, the whistle blew for full-time and Darlington had avenged their earlier defeat and ruined Halifax's winning run.
The Seconds went down 71-10 against a strong Tynedale side with tries coming from Richard Aspinall and Andy Turnbull.
The Thirds and Fourth did not play, and the Colts had a convincing 71-10 win over Hartlepool Rovers.
Nine tries were scored, each by a diferent player with Kieran Thompson kicking six conversions and a penalty.
Gaving Wood touched down first followed by Richard Snowball, Jez Scott, Chris Daley, and Barry Hutchinson in the first-half, and Nick Pritchard, James Beattie, Craig Dawson and U17s player Russ Hayward in the second.
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