BOURNEMOUTH III 24 WEYMOUTH & PORTLAND 38

WEYMOUTH & Portland stormed back from 14 points down against Bournemouth to ensure they remained hot on the heels of league leaders Yeovil.

Club president Des Quick took control of the squad on the day in place of head coach Paul Harding, who was unavailable. The away side also had to cope without the likes of Joel Wilson and George Carter.

Having gone 7-0 down early on at Bournemouth, good work from scrum-half Craig Barter, who was impressive throughout the contest, meant he surged through and placed a deft chip for Chris Lewendon to follow up and score for 7-5 and get things going for Quick’s charges.

The Lions’ third team then added to their total with two scores to make it 19-5 in their favour, but the Monmouth Avenue outfit rallied before the interval and Dan Haynes touched down to make up some of the deficit. Bryn Llewellyn added the extras.

Buoyed by that score and, with a strong wind at their backs, Weymouth & Portland got themselves organised and, with an improvement in their line speed, they surged to victory in the second period.

Joe Gibson touched down twice, the second of which was converted. Lewendon added another to seal his brace and kicker Llewellyn put the game to bed, converting his own try to make it 38-19 in the away side’s favour.

Bournemouth did however touch down their fourth try to ensure they got a bonus point, but it was not to take too much of the gloss off what was a strong performance from the men in blue.

“It was quite a critical match really because they were one point below us in the league,” Quick said. “If we had lost then we would have started to get out of touch with the leaders really.

He added: “Everyone was pleased afterwards and felt that was one of the best wins we have had had this year.

“Coming into it we had lost against Yeovil, then lost in a cup final and then had a pretty poor game against the Cabin Crew the week before.

“One of the things we were really pleased about was that we played a team well and it was a team effort. It’s nice to have stars in the team but it did our spirit a hell of a lot of good.”

Weymouth sit second, two points behind Yeovil.