Minety skipper Dave Peirce was left to rue a terrible opening 20 minutes from his side as a stunning four-try blitz by Sherborne No 8 Richard Nias helped the visitors grab a 29-12 victory and top spot in Dorset & Wilts One.

"We were very poor in the opening 20 minutes,'' admitted Peirce. "We had a fantastic second half, but we just left ourselves too much to do.''

Playing down the slope and with a breeze at their backs, Sherborne made light work of an uncharacteristically disorganised Minety defence.

The first score came after six minutes, as Nias finished off with a try under the posts.

It was converted and the visitors went further ahead as, despite a crunching tackle from Minety winger Ollie Bown, Sherborne swiftly recycled the ball and Nias was again on hand to finish things off.

This time the conversion missed, as did a subsequent penalty attempt by Minety, who promptly turned the ball over and allowed Nias to complete his hat-trick in the corner.

He then increased his tally to four with a short-range dive.

The visitors maintained their pressure for the rest of the half and led 24-0, but Minety were a different side after the break.

Their efforts were rewarded when Sherborne failed to gather a penetrating kick ahead from fly-half James Tweedale and centre Luke Huckin swept the ball before returning the ball to Tweedale who scored and converted.

Further pressure resulted in a second try, this time by winger Duncan Drewett after a pass from scrum-half Andy Brown.

But they could find no further way through and Sherborne staged a last-minute breakout which saw winger Brett Kleinhans go over.