Gloucestershire 35

Dorset & Wilts 29

DORSET & Wilts suffered a narrow defeat away to Gloucestershire under-20s in their second fixture in the Jason Leonard County under-20 Championship.

The hosts started with a bang as they scored a quick converted try and the majority of the half was dominated by the hosts.

The visitors did manage to put some good phases of play together but when looking to score they couldn't quite cross the line.

Gloucestershire scored two more unconverted tries and added a penalty to make to take their score to 20.

Dorset hit back before the half ended when fly half Alex Peel converted a penalty, and soon after Dorset were rewarded for all their efforts, some quick phases of play allowed an overlap for the backs and Finn Dewar crossed over the line for the score but Peel missed the difficult extras to mean at half time D&W were trailing 20-8.

The second half started in disastrous fashion for the visitors as the hosts scored another break away try to make it 27-8.

The visitors then began to build a comeback as the back row of Jared Cardew, James Hill and Josh McCafferty began to make strong runs through the middle of the park.

Winger Noah Cannon began to get the ball in hand and began to challenge the defence with some fast powerful runs.

D&W were soon on the score sheet when Cardew scored and they continued the pressure and prop Tom Cordery crashed over from short distance to make 27-22.

The visitors were now rampant and piling on the pressure on the hosts, wave after wave of attack resulted in home side conceding several penalties resulting in the home side skipper seeing the red card for a second yellow offence when he deliberately knocked on.

Instead of attempting an easy three points, skipper Hill decided to go for the lineout deep in Gloucestershire territory to see if the green and white could push over for a try.

A good throw in the line out from Billy Maidment saw a catch and set from the green and white resulting in Cardew diving over for his second.

The conversion was successful as the visitors found themselves leading 27-29 with 10 minutes left on the clock.

Despite this the 14-man home side had the last say when an error from the green and whites allowed the home side to have a scrum deep in the visitors half and from the scrum a well worked backs move and some poor defence saw the home sides winger sprint over.

The conversion was missed but with moments on the clock the home side had almost sealed the victory.

Dorset tried to mount one last attack, but deep into over time the visitors attack was stopped by the home side’s defence which forced an error from the green and whites which resulted in the final whistle being blown.

Their next fixture is when they host Cornwall at Dorchester RFC on Sunday March 18.