Poole Town v Dartford

Report

Joe Brophy

Dartford ensured they remained the team to beat in the National League South with a hard-fought 1-0 win away to Poole Town.

An early first half header from Richard Sho-Silva sealed the three points for the travelling Darts.

A day to forget for Poole as they finished the day with 9 men after red cards were shown to Brooks and Gillespie late on.

The victory springs Dartford up to 38 points, three clear of second placed Braintree whereas the wait for Poole’s first home win of the season goes on.

Dartford got off to the perfect start when Sho-Silva’s powerful header from an eighth minute corner beat Hutchings.

The Darts continued to exploit their prowess from set pieces with Sho-Silva’s long throw ins causing particular havoc for the home side’s back line.

Danny Mills almost made it two on his debut when he evaded the challenge from Moore, but Hutchings just managed to squirm away his effort off the line.

After the initial onslaught Poole begun to settle into the game but failed with any real quality in the final third. Devlin finally managed to test Deren Ibrahim from long distance just before half-time, but the Darts stopper was alert enough to push it round the post.

The game petered out in the second half with the Darts happy to settle for their lead and soak up the pressure and hit the home side on the counter attack.

Andy Pugh almost made sure of the victory shortly after coming on after he latched onto a cross from Ryan Hayes but forced Hutchings into a very good stop.

The game came to an ugly finish five minutes from time when Brooks saw red for lashing out at Mills who he perceived to be time wasting clinging onto the ball.

An ensuing melee between both sets of players saw Bradbrook and Mills both pick up yellow cards.

Murphy then had the opportunity to add insult to injury when a through ball exposed Poole’s back line, but Hutchings was alive to swallow the attack.

It did get worse for Poole however as they were then forced to finish the six minutes of stoppage time with 9 men when Gillespie was shown a straight red for a lunge.

Despite dominating in numbers Dartford almost threw away two points at the death when Hayes got back to clear the ball off the line following a late Poole corner, but the Darts thankfully held on for all three.

Poole Town: Hutchings, Lindsay, Moore, Spetch, Whisken, Pettefer, Dickson, Devlin, Bentley, Brooks, Neale

Poole Town Subs: Harfield, Rees, Balmer, Gillespie, Bedford

Dartford: – D Ibrahim, A. Brown, M Onyemah, R Vint, R Sho-Silva, L Della-Verde, R Hayes, E Bradbrook (c), A Pavey, D Mills and T Murphy

Dartford Subs: A Pugh, W Mufla, T Eweka, A Cue, L Gillies

Attendance: 411