BRIDPORT 3 PUDDLETOWN 0

A SOLITARY Rory Greening penalty settled this scrappy, low-scoring Dorset & Wilts Two South contest at the Brewery Field in Bridport.

The Blues made an inauspicious start to the encounter when they had a man sent to the sin bin for a late tackle on Puddletown fly-half Baz Dovell.

But the Villagers failed to take advantage of the situation and when they strayed offside at a scrum close their line Greening made them pay.

Continued Bridport pressure saw Puddletown penalised for holding on in the ruck, but this time Greening was off target with his kick at goal.

Perhaps because of the lack of points being scored the game became a tense affair with passes fumbled and turnovers conceded at critical moments.

Both sides spurned gilt-edged chances to cross the whitewash and establish dominance, repeatedly falling short through simple handling errors and poor decision making.

Late in the first half, Puddletown flanker Sam Pomeroy drove through the centre of the field and Bridport were penalised for coming in at the side of a ruck 15 metres from their own posts.

The visitors chose to run the resulting penalty instead of taking the three points on offer, a decision they would later regret.

The ball was dropped just short of the line, Bridport won the resulting scrum and then cleared the ball to halfway.

As in previous games, Briport’s scrum was sound and their lineout effective.

Mike Pibworth was again influential across the pitch, however, the back line continues to look like a work in progress.

Their task wasn’t helped when fly-half Ricky Stubbs aggravated an injury in the warm up and was unable to start.

Will Everitt deputised and found himself at outside-half, centre and scrum-half all in the space of 40 minutes, as Jason Kidd and then Tony Dommett were introduced to try and break the deadlock.

The second half was much the same as the first, with both sides doing their best to cancel out their opponents’ attack.

Bridport came close to scoring a try but the referee had blown up for crossing on the 22.

The only high point for Puddletown was a wonderful clearing kick from captain Tom Yeatman, who made 70 metres from an acute angle in his own 22.

Greening at outside centre and man of the match Daragh McLoughlin made some decent breaks for Bridport but they were unable to offload the telling pass.

Bridport did enough to win this one but will probably wonder why they didn’t do so more convincingly.

With only a three-point cushion, visitors Puddletown could so easily have nicked it at the finish.