Southampton 28 - 8 US Portsmouth

The visitors started strongly, retaining the ball from the kick off and penning Southampton in their own twenty two. But after absorbing the early pressure, Southampton started stringing the ball together and soon put left winger Mark Waterer away. He closed in on the line, but with three covering defenders approaching he attempted a chip over, which was cleared by the defence.

Southampton's forwards then started to dominate, with a colossal rolling maul driving the visitors back over their try line. Tony Cador got the ball down to finish off a tremendous team effort from the pack.

The second try came after a break from Paul Brant, attacking the blind side at a scrum. He found hooker Andrew Dymott in support, who did all the hard work and crossed the line himself before offloading for a grateful Julian Robins to touch down. The conversion was wide but Dave Ward did add two penalties, taking the score to 16-0.

Aside from the initial few minutes, Southampton played most of the first half camped in US Portsmouth's twenty-two. The visitors struggled to match the forwards at the scrum and Saints almost looked comfortable in defence. But after only five minutes of the second half, a nasty clash of heads saw the match interrupted while an ambulance was called. It seemed Portsmouth reacted better to the delay, while Southampton appeared to have somewhat gone off the boil when the game resumed.

Despite the dip in form, Southampton then pulled out the try of the match through Ryan Keary. Pierre Molyneux flicked the ball on to Tony Cador under intense pressure from the Portsmouth defence. He gathered a difficult ball from around his ankles and flung it Fijian-style backwards through his legs to Ryan Keary, who fought his way under the posts to leave Ward an easy two points.

US Portsmouth were next on the scoreboard, taking three points after Saints were penalised for holding on. They then added a try of their own, with the full ball getting on the end of a counter attack to cross on the left wing.

The game then took an unexpected twist with less than ten minutes remaining, when prop Kevin Simmons was yellow-carded for a late tackle on the US full back. Shortly after, substitute Doug Barrow found himself on the receiving end of a swinging fist from the US hooker and the ref inexplicably sent off both players.

The resulting reorganisation of the scrums saw US drop a player and go uncontested, leaving the sides with thirteen men apiece. Guaranteed clean ball, Saints opted for a scrum after Portsmouth were penalised at the death. Number eight Tony Cador picked up and held off the defence for his second try of the game. Ward added the conversion with the last kick of the game taking the final score to 28-8.

An excellent win for Southampton whose first half performance showed the quality they are capable of producing, even if they went slightly downhill after the break. Still some work to be done ahead of next week's game against league leaders Alton.