BRIDPORT 3 SWANAGE & WAREHAM 11 50

A BRIDPORT side without captain Dave Cutting were soundly beaten by the Swans in a one-sided Dorset & Wilts Two South encounter.

Cutting, missing due to nose surgery after numerous breaks suffered during his rugby career, was joined on the sidelines by regular Blues’ kicker Rory Greening, who was out through injury.

The hosts actually made a good start and, sustained pressure from the kick-off, led to a penalty which was converted by scrum-half Craig Marshall.

But the Swans responded almost immediately and a quick tap penalty resulted in a try despite some scrambling Bridport defence.

The conversion was kicked from out wide to make it 7-3 to the visitors.

A high tackle from a Bridport player allowed the away side to extend their advantage to 10-3 and from then on the Blues’ defence became increasingly ragged.

Swans’ blindside flanker ran through virtually unopposed to score between the posts. The extras were added to make it 17-3.

Full of confidence, Swanage & Wareham’s scrum-half repeated the exercise to score a converted try.

Bridport were finally stung into action and contested strongly up to the interval, but they had nothing to show for their effort.

Straight from the restart, however, weak tackling led to a try for the Swans’ full-back, and so it went on, with the visitors’ confident running and excellent support play exposing Bridport’s shaky defence.

The final score was 50-3, but to their credit, Bridport never gave up and in fact finished quite strongly, as they had in the first half.

Mark Gough was Bridport’s man of the match for a typically gutsy performance in a lost cause.

Bridport slip to sixth in the table after conceding a half-century of points for the second weekend running.

They next head to Monmouth Avenue for a derby against Wey-mouth & Portland.