WEYMOUTH & PORTLAND 8

ROYAL WOOTTON BASSETT II 29

WEYMOUTH & Portland were beaten by a ruthless Royal Wootton Bassett Seconds who completed the double over the Seahorses thanks to a 29-8 win.

The Wiltshire side thrashed their Dorset counterparts 61-24 on the opening day of the season but the return fixture was a closer affair.

Weymouth & Portland did trail 18-3 at the break, with only an Eddie van deurs Goss penalty to show for their efforts.

The hosts were left to rue a mistake in the Bassett 22 which allowed their winger, who would go on to score a hat-trick, to counter with a try.

READ MORE: Weymouth & Portland 39-6 Yeovil - report

However, in the second half Chris Norton rumbled over from a driving maul to give Weymouth & Portland a consolation score.

His try still did not prevent the visitors from extending their winning margin to 21 points by full-time.

Seahorses’ head coach Rich Bament said: “We’re going through a bit of a tough spell at the minute with a lot of injuries and unavailabilities.

“But we were good in patches. It’s a tough league and we knew it would be hard all the way through. We made a few errors which put pressure onto ourselves.

“I can’t fault their effort but sometimes when you’re on a loser, you carry on. You need to find a moment of inspiration from somewhere, but we’ve given a good account of ourselves this season.”

After the Christmas break, Weymouth & Portland travel to former leaders Sherborne on Saturday, January 6.