Dartford travelled their furthest away match of the season at the weekend to play Truro City away in what would be a triumphant five goal win against the White Tigers.
Tony Burman and the team flew to Newquay airport on Saturday morning, with new loanee Goalkeeper Joe Taylor joining the squad after signing on Friday morning. Bailey Vose who was originally brought in as a replacement for Deren Ibrahim who is away on international duty, picked up an injury in Wednesday evening’s match against Cray Wanderers.
Tony switched up his team and formation once again from Wednesday’s team with Danny Harris back in the starting eleven, along with Captain Elliot Bradbrook, Duane Ofori-Acheampong and Andy Pugh. Lee Noble and Ronnie Vint took their place on the bench for the start of the game along with a returning from injury Tom Wynter.
The Darts dominated the game from the off, with the opening goal falling to Keaton Wood on the fourth minute after a Dartford corner in from Ryan Hayes.
A few more chances for Dartford from Ofori-Acheampong, Harris and Pugh were testing the Truro keeper and they had to work hard to keep The Darts at bay, scrapping many of the chances out of the box as quickly as they could.
Truro tried to equalise however Joe Taylor saved all attempts with ease. The second goal for Dartford came from another cross in by Hayes which was headed in by Pugh around the half hour mark. The Darts hadn’t finished there, with Pugh taking another shot which hit the post and rebounded out to Ofori-Acheampong who turned and shot straight into the goal to make it 0-3 ahead of half time.
The second half started a little better for Truro who seemed to emerge from their half time team talk ready for battle, but it wasn’t meant to be as Dartford pushed back and attacked well at every chance.
Ofori-Acheampong and Pugh had a couple of chances wide, and eventually the fourth came from Ofori-Acheampong with a great move from Hayes who knocked the ball to Harris who was clear after yet another overlapping run for Ofori-Acheampong to clear.
Burman made two substitutions at this point, taking off Ryan Hayes and Luke Wanadio and bringing on Lee Noble and Ellis Brown.
Truro again seemed to use the fourth goal to spur them on, and they tried their best to get one goal back but Tom Bonner and Tom Gardiner cleared most of their chances away with Taylor saving all attempts on goal.
The fifth and final goal of the game came from Alex Brown after Ellis Brown had gone around the goalkeeper into a wide area and Ellis knocked it to Alex who then put the ball into the net.
Burman made his final substitution of the game with Ofori-Acheampong coming off and Ronnie Vint taking his place. This meant that Harris moved up front with Pugh to make way for Vint at the back.
The final few minutes of the match left Truro with no further chances, and they accepted defeat with The Darts winning 0-5 and keeping a clean sheet.
Tony Burman said after the game “I’ve been asking the players to get into fourth and fifth gear for a longer duration during games and on Saturday they certainly did that. I felt all round the whole day was an excellent experience and to win in the way that we did was the icing on the cake. I’d like to thank all the supporters for their efforts in travelling such a long way for a football match.”
Truro City: McHale, Bentley, Richards, Knowles, Lyttle, Pugh, Brett, Thompson, Neal, Adelsbury, Allen
Subs: Afful, Basso, Panzer, Mitchell
Dartford: Taylor, Harris, Gardiner, Bonner, Wood, Hayes, A Brown, Bradbrook, Wanadio, Ofori-Acheampong, Pugh
Subs: Noble, Vint, E Brown, Wynter, Coxall
Attendance: 464