WIMBORNE were left angry and bewildered by the referee's performance after they had two tries disallowed in their 21-13 home league reverse against Marlow.

The mid-table Leigh Parkers were leading promotion hopefuls Marlow 13-5 in the second half when a touchdown by Wells was mysteriously ruled out by the official.

He had crossed the line after Wimborne claimed Marlow's full back had deliberately knocked on.

Instead of awarding the try - which would have propelled Wimborne 18-5 in front - Wimborne said the referee, after talking to the full back, disallowed the score and awarded a scrum to Wimborne.

The Leigh Parkers felt it was obvious that the referee should have allowed the try as they were penalised by the knock on, not Marlow, who they believed should have been.

Wimborne, who had controlled much of the game until then, briefly lost their composure over the incident and Marlow took advantage to hit back with two penalties that trimmed the Dorset side's lead to 13-11.

One of the penalties came following another incident that Wimborne felt was bizarre.

They claimed the referee unfairly penalised their full back for not releasing the ball immediately after Marlow, on the attack, should have been pulled up for a knock on.

Marlow converted the resultant penalty to cut their deficit to 13-8 at that stage.

With the score at 13-11, Wimborne back Mikolewski caught a cross field kick perfectly at full speed to run in unopposed for a try, only for the referee to disallow the touchdown for "offside" and deny the hosts pulling away from Marlow once again.

Frustratingly for the Leigh Parkers, another controversial penalty then gave Marlow a 14-13 lead.

Defending well, Wimborne were penalised at a ruck and, in total despair, they admitted throwing the ball away.

Quite rightly, in the Leigh Parkers' eyes, this time the referee was right to march the visitors 10 metres up field.

Marlow went for the tap penalty, but a brilliant tackle by Wimborne's Jordan saw Marlow spill the ball forward.

Again, Wimborne stressed they were bewildered when the referee did not penalise the knock on after the Leigh Parkers had pounced on the loose ball only for Marlow to be awarded the scrum.

Wimborne captain O'Bryan asked the referee why Marlow had been given the put in and promptly had a penalty awarded against him from which Marlow scored to put them ahead for the first time in the game.

With only three minutes of the second half remaining, and in desperation, Wimborne tried to run the ball out of their own 22, a pass was intercepted and Marlow's winger ran in under the posts to score a converted try and seal their unlikely eight-point victory.

Wimborne spokesman Paul Collins, who stressed they had no grievance against Marlow's players, said: "We need to take positives out of this match.

"We did not get the rub of the green, but that happens sometimes.

"There were some great performances out there and the team spirit is good.

"Our injury list is worrying but some players are back next weekend and we need to build, not dwell to much on things we cannot control."

For the record, Hymers had dived over early in the first half to put a Wimborne side without four first-team regulars 5-0 in front.

Mikolewski converted and then added a penalty before Marlow replied with a penalty just before the break.

A second Mikolewski penalty after the interval stretched Wimborne's advantage to 13-5 before they saw their hard-won lead evaporate.

Wimborne: Moxham, Gee, Mikolewski, Llewellyn, Wells, Hymers, Baker, Atkins, Hescroft, Jordan, Bethell, Huggins, Oddie, O'Bryan, Brokenshire, Leyland.