Dorchester travelled to mid-table Wimborne in their last Southern Counties league fixture before Christmas. The last time the two sides met a month ago, Dorchester threw the game away with some poor defending, but with the County Town side playing with more confidence after the draw with league pace setters Trowbridge two weeks ago, this promised to be a different game.
However this was not to be as Dorchester turned in one of their worst performances of the season. Chris Burton's men simply failed to turn up, the much improved pack played as individuals and certainly didn't perform as an eight where they failed to provide any good ball for their half backs throughout the eighty minutes.
The game started poorly for the visitors as they were camped within their own twenty two for the first quarter of the game. To be fair Wimborne started strongly using their strong runners from deep to break over the gain line at will. Dorchester were often up too slow in defence and Wimborne's inside centre in particular cut through the visitors defence on a number of occasions. Predictably Wimborne scored first after 5 minutes, however Dorchester replied almost immediately when back row George Damen crashed through Wimborne's backline to score under the posts. John Firkin added the two points.
From then on it was all Wimborne as they took control through their forwards, allowing their half backs, who both enjoyed fine games, to run the game at Dorchester's back line which seemed to be struggling in defence. By half time the game was over and it was very much a case of playing for pride in the second half.
Dorchester failed to add to their points tally in the second half as they failed to secure enough ball to profit. George Damen made a couple of strong breaks but there was no support runners on hand to take advantage.
Dorchester must go back to the drawing board and re-group if they are to avoid relegation this season. Their are at least four winnable games in the second half of the season, so the County Town side must not be two downcast after this performance. There are also a couple of players to welcome back after injury, which should provide a much needed boost to the side.
Dorchester resume their league campaign on January 5th, where they host second in the table Frome.
