A gallant Wootton Bassett First Reserve team side went down 37-7 at the hands of their Swanage & Wareham counterparts in a hard-fought Dorset & Wilts 2nd XV Vase encounter.

The home side were deserving victors and Bassett's only points came from a Pete Thornton try, followed by Andy Dowan's conversion.

There were a number of good performances in the Bassett ranks, particularly from Tom Deitriech, Thornton and Dowan.

Skipper Rob May said: "It was a very tough game, and Swans really did deserve the win.

"However the lads stepped up to the challenge and we deserved more for our efforts.

"But for a few costly errors it would have been much closer."

n Wootton Bassett 3rd returned to winning ways with an emphatic 41-0 win over neighbours Wellesley Arms in Saturday's Dorset & Wilts Division 2 North match.

Bassett started the stronger and early forward pressure resulted in the ball being spun quickly into the centre for Pete Woods to sprint through for the try.

Bassett then started to turn the screw in the forwards and, profiting from a wealth of possession, full-back Stuart Wakely crossed over for an unconverted try on the 20-minute mark.

The half finished with centre Woods diving in under the posts, scrum-half Dave Scott converting for a 17-0 lead.

Bassett made a few changes at the break but it failed to change the momentum as replacement centre Lee Davies charged through to touch down under the posts. The player converted his own try.

Bassett were back on the scoreboard straight from the kick off when again the ball was caught and fed to flanker Matt McKee, who then popped to second row Colin Mountford.

He in turn offloaded to fly-half Jon Spillane to dive over, Davies converting.

Bassett repeated exactly the same move from the kick-off, only this time the final pass from Mountford went to replacement full-back Ben Ashwell to go over on his debut.

Stand-in skipper and No 8 Ian Chard completed the try-scoring for Wootton Bassett when he dived over from close range.