HEAD coach Simon Culley masterminded back-to-back Twickenham triumphs and then predicted a “hugely bright” future for the Twin Counties.

Culley believes Dorset & Wiltshire’s second consecutive County Championship Shield success marks their greatest achievement – and he is confident the glory days can continue.

The Twin Counties successfully defended the crown they won last year with a 43-22 victory over Surrey.

Having trailed 10-0 early on and 19-17 with 49 minutes on the clock, Dorset & Wilts’ fitness and running game eventually paid dividends as they racked up 26 points in the final 27 minutes.

Culley watched with delight as tries from Frazer Wilford, captain Adam Westall, Lewis Warner, Tom Baldwin (2) and Scott Chislett retained the silverware.

And he thinks the past two seasons do not have to be a flash in the pan – with plenty of talent coming through the Twin Counties ranks.

Culley told the Echo: “Last year was the first time the senior Dorset & Wilts team had played at Twickenham and it was the first senior silverware they had ever won. We have doubled it now and there is some momentum.

“With Bournemouth, Chippenham, Swindon and Salisbury all doing really well in their leagues – either getting promoted or to the play-offs last season – there is some real momentum in the Twin Counties.

“It looks like a hugely bright future. We have got nine players in the England under-16s or under-18s’ summer camps and the under-20s got to the national semi-finals as well. It is a really bright period of rugby with a whole conveyor belt of talent coming through.

“Three 18-year-olds and a 19-year-old played for us at Twickenham – one of them got two tries – and the momentum is really there.”

Despite a slow start, Culley insisted he was confident Twin Counties would emerge victorious.

He said: “We expected Surrey to be big and strong up front and they were.

“That limited our opportunities early on but we stuck to our game-plan and the boys kept their concentration, started wearing them down and started to come back into it.

The longer the game went on, the more confident I was that our style of play would come through and give us the win.

“Our game is based completely around speed and width and trying to move the opposition players around the pitch and keep them tired.

“That is what we did and towards the end their forwards started to struggle a little bit after having a very strong game themselves. We managed to get a couple of extra tries at the end to finish them off.”