WEYMOUTH & PORTLAND 14

PUDDLETOWN 20

WEYMOUTH & Portland suffered a second-half collapse to throw away a winning position and give Puddletown only their second win of the season in Dorset & Wilts One South.

The Villagers were first on the scoresheet after a quarter of an hour.

After the referee played advantage for a Weymouth indiscretion and after a missed tackle from the home side, the visitors spun the ball out wide to hooker Jez Beale who went over in the corner to score an unconverted try.

With half an hour played, the Seahorses fielded a loose Puddletown kick in their own 22 and, from a strong run forward, the ball was recycled.

Billy Hayne was involved in the move three times before Jason Hoskins powered over in between the sticks for a converted try.

Within five minutes, Weymouth doubled their score with an almost identical move, this time it was Hayne who was at the end of some good interplay and scored under the posts to give the Seahorses a 14-5 lead at the break.

It was the visitors who dominated the second-half through their strong defence and speed out wide, aided by Andy Bowditch being sent to the sin-bin for an infringement in a ruck for the home side.

The considerably heavier Weymouth pack tired and started to give away more penalties.

A quickly tapped penalty by winger Jacob Holt resulted in the ball going from left to right across the pitch, with Beale taking advantage of the overlap and going over to score his second try.

Five minutes later, the visitors took the lead with a similar try again from a quickly-taken penalty, hooker Beale was lurking on the wing again to power through the covering Weymouth defence to score his third try of the game.

The home side tried to use their big forwards to batter their way through the middle of the park, but the visitors’ tackling was dominant and there was no way through the red wall.

When Weymouth did get the ball out to their backs, they seemed intent on kicking their possession away, much to the frustration of their coaches.

Puddletown scored their fourth try to secure a much-needed bonus point victory with about five minutes to go.

The home side once again penalised in the ruck, another quickly-taken penalty saw the ball spun out to the left wing, where outside-centre Tom Doyle just managed to dive into the corner and ground the ball to make the final score 20-14.

Puddletown coach Paul Chidley said: “I’m extremely proud of the squad and I’m happy that all their hard work in training is paying off on a Saturday.

“The boys showed real heart and worked well together as a team.”

Weymouth coach Simon Litster said: “I don’t know where to start. It was a very frustrating afternoon from our viewpoint and I’m sure Puddletown were cock-a-hoop.

“I think that sort of galvanised us into action which had the desired result, we scored two tries within five minutes in the first half.

“Credit to them they just came back at us, they kept running everything. Their desire was greater than ours, their heads went up and ours went down.”

Weymouth & Portland: Comben, Hayne, Bowditch, Latham, Norton, Hoskins, Bocio, Oaksford, Allen, Legg, Davies, Beynon, Guest, Farley, Toms. Reps: Richards, Sankey, D Hayne, Tibble, Keeble-Kinsella, Davis

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