Makeshift Blues fall in Somerset (From Bridport and Lyme Regis News)

Makeshift Blues fall in Somerset

9:28am Wednesday 14th March 2012 in Rugby By Ky Capel

FROME II 19 Bridport 10

DEPLETED Bridport put up a valiant effort at Frome Seconds but ultimately returned home empty-handed.

Forced to make seven chan-ges to the starting XV, including playing the entire 80 minutes himself, head coach Mark Botten knew his side faced an uphill task from the off.

However, it was the visitors who took the lead just three minutes in when Nathan Herbert crossed the whitewash.

Team-mate Harry Clark also touched down in the second period but second-bottom Frome eventually came out on top to claim the Dorset & Wilts One South spoils.

Botten said: “We went up there with seven changes from the previous week, which didn’t help the cause.

“Timmy Edwards was still injured and our captain Rob Sullivan dropped out on Thursday night after getting a nasty bang on his head.

“The changes caused us a few issues and I had to play the whole game at full-back as we were really short.

“We did though put up a pretty good show with the side we fielded and everyone stepped up to the mark.

“To lose by nine points was not a bad result given the fact we were really struggling for a side. We did the best we could out of a bad position.”

Botten added: “The lead swapped hands two or three times and if we could have taken our chances, the game could’ve gone either way.

“We had a good start and scored an early try but they then kept hold of the ball quite a lot and every time we went into contact they snuffed out anything we tried to do.

“There were also too many turnovers and they disrupted us and forced us to do things we didn’t really want to do.

“It also came down to a bit of inexperience as we had seven players aged 18 or under.”

The Blues, who have dropped to eighth in the table, are without a fixture this weekend.