DORCHESTER II 12

SUPERMARINE 10

A NARROW victory saw Dorchester Seconds book their place in the final of the Dorset & Wilts Shield, as they secured a home win over Supermarine.

With a good crowd in attendance at Coburg Road, the second XV were looking to continue their run of strong performances going into the new year.

The beginning of the first half was very cagey with neither side wanting to slip up and provide their opponents with any opportunities to register points.

The half then sparked to life when Jamie Morgan made a break from just inside his own half passing several players with strong running before feeding inside to a supporting player who failed to hold on to the ball.

Supermarine managed to clear their lines from the resulting scrum but good ball from the Dorchester line-out allowed full-back Matt Read to jink through the middle and find Morgan in support, who crashed over out wide.

Ten minutes later, substitute Ed Andrews pounced upon a loose ball, hacking the ball through before collecting and cantering under the posts, the conversion was much simpler for Parker, who duly slotted home to make it 12-0 in Dorchester’s favour.

Supermarine reacted to ensure that they went in at half-time with points on the board when, from the kick-off, Dorchester failed to gather the loose ball and were penalised for a high tackle.

Supermarine elected to take the kick and successfully converted the 40-metre penalty.

Dorchester dominated the start of the second half and, after missing a penalty kick, the hosts were awarded another penalty five metres from the try line.

Dorchester decided to run it and a string of penalty’s and other infringements followed. Supermarine were unable to get the ball out of their 22 and Dorchester were unable to turn the pressure into points.

When Supermarine finally did clear their lines they managed to pin Dorchester back to their own 22.

A line-out for Dorchester was disrupted and the ball bounced kindly over the try line giving Supermarine an easy score which they converted successfully to bring them to within a single score at 12-10.

But Dorchester held firm for the remainder of the second half and managed to secure their place in the final.

Man of the match was awarded to Ed Andrews whose immense physicality with ball in hand provided constant problems for the Supermarine defence.