Dorset Senior League WITCHAMPTON UNITED 1 WEYMOUTH SPORTS 0 Sports suffered their second defeat in three games when they lost away to Witchampton.

The visitors got off to a lively start and enjoyed the upper hand in the early exchanges, although scoring chances were at a premium.

As the half wore on Witchamp-ton's physical approach gave them the edge and the seasiders were lucky to survive as their rearguard was breached twice in quick succession, by long balls over the top.

Sports were forced to commit last-ditch fouls on the edge of the box to prevent themselves going a goal down.

The second half saw Sports regain their early momentum and were looking the most likely to open the scoring, although clear-cut chances were still hard to come by.

Then with 30 minutes left the Witches hit Sports on the break.

The visitors failed to deal with a left wing cross and the Witches' striker turned the ball home to score what turned out to be the winner.

The Weymouth outfit then threw everything at the home side to try and find the equaliser, and they thought they had done so, only to see a long-range shot from Chris Armstrong hit the bar, with the keeper beaten.

Substitute Andy Mason started to pull the strings in midfield and went close on several occasions but it wasn't to be as the Witches held out for a hard fought win.

Sports' boss Gary Bailey said: "It just didn't happen for us today. We had too many people playing out of position due to the unavailability of several players which never helped our shape at the back and things never clicked in the final third.

"We knew it was going to be a tough game and fair play to them they worked very hard and made things difficult for us.

"I can't fault the effort of my players though, they gave it their all to try and get back into it. We must now bounce back this week."

Sports: Carter, Thorne, Cleal, Wallis, Stanton, Hastie, Jones, Parnell, (Mason), Armstrong, Hillier, (Hicks), Underhay, (McGarrigal).