US Portsmouth 20 -10 Southampton

Southampton started with four new faces in the First Team, with Adam Tyson at outside centre, Russ Clarke at scrum half, Tom Jackson at hooker and flanker Adam Davies on the bench.

Portsmouth got off the mark first, with a series of short drives gradually working the ball closer to the Southampton line. Despite some committed defending, the continued pressure eventually opened a gap in the defence and US forced their way through to touch down. The conversion was missed.

Portsmouth extended their lead soon after, making the most of a penalty to take a quick tap and flood towards the Southampton line. Despite the determined defence, the home side were able to find a hole and score. This time the conversion hit the post.

US Portsmouth put immense pressure on Ward at 10, leaving him with little time to get the Southampton backs running. Instead they found more success keeping it amongst the forwards and put together some good attacks, but were unable to break through. The final points of the first half came from a US Portsmouth penalty which crept over off the crossbar.

In the second half, Southampton found their feet and started to look more dangerous. Kevin Simmons replaced Pete Fox at tight head and immediately got involved taking an offload and charging towards the line, but he was stopped short.

A reorganisation from Southampton brought Adam Davies onto the flank, with Kevin Cant dropping to inside centre and Ramsay Lind moving to scrum half. The change had an immediate impact as Portsmouth lost control of a ball at the back of a five yard scrum and Davies got up first to dive on the ball for a try on his debut. The kick was missed taking the score to 13-5.

Portsmouth then responded with a breakaway try, despite some excellent defence from Southampton, which extended the lead to 20-5. But Southampton had settled into their game plan and seemed to have more in the tank than US. A break through the middle saw Tom Jackson held short of the line, but with five backs unmarked outside Southampton couldn’t get the ball out of the breakdown and Portsmouth were able to cover the threat.

Southampton closed the gap again through vice captain Jamie Hoque, who put pressure on US Pompey on their own try line, causing the ball to be fumbled and handing Hoque an easy try. Again the conversion was missed, taking the score to 20-10 and putting Southampton within three points of a losing bonus point. But they had settled into their game plan too late and despite dominating the final twenty minutes, they ran out of time to reduce the deficit.

Despite the defeat there were some excellent positive signs from a new-look Southampton, but ultimately it took too long to get up to speed and realise how to beat Portsmouth.