Dartmouth Rugby Football clubs Walking Rugby team, known locally as " Dart Oldi'uns" were invited to take part in The Topsham Walking Rugby festival last Saturday.

They were unlucky the week before, not to win the Withycombe festival, when they narrowly lost in the final.

At Topsham, they were up against Rugby clubs from larger towns and Cities who included, Amesbury, Broad Plains RFC ( Bristol)
Crediton, Esher ( Surrey) Exeter Saracens, Gloucester, Kingswood ( Bristol) Salisbury & host side Topsham.

Dartmouth won all their games except a draw against Kingswood, which put them in the final against Salisbury.
Dartmouth were too strong for the team from Wiltshire and deservedly won the final.

Considering The Dart Oldi'uns were only formed just over 3 years ago, they were crowned the best Walking Rugby side in Devon at the festival and were presented with a new trophy donated by the Devon RFU and England RFU.

They cleared the table of silverware, when they were also presented with " The McCarthy Stone Cup" for being the outright winners of the Topsham festival.

Walking Rugby coordinator for Dartmouth Yvonne Cottam said after the presentations, " We are absolutely over the moon for both the club and town of Dartmouth. This is our first ever Festival where we have claimed both cups and to be voted the best Walking Rugby side in Devon is a great honour.
The final against Salisbury was well contested, with some great ball handling and passing down the line. We won by 2 tries to one. It was just a great all round team effort by Dartmouth.
It was a well organised event run by Topsham RFC with a lot of laughter and camaraderie, yet all matches were played competitively.
Dartmouth are now getting a reputation in the world of walking Rugby and we are now the team that everyone wants to beat."

Dartmouth Squad.
Lee Chase, Matt Putt. Colin Wilson. Martin Sharam, Dave Cudd. David Sayle. Pat Putt. Yvonne Cottam & Myra William's.

Report by
Dick Evans
Press Officer