Bridport remain undefeated at Ringwood

The Daggers continued their impressive opening to the season with their third consecutive bonus point
win, 34-19, against a strong Ellingham & Ringwood side to move to second in the table.

The match kicked off with both sides testing each other and play switching from 22 to 22. Following an
unsuccessful kick and chase from Bridport’s Nathan Herbert the opposition took the drop out with Harry
Richardson making inroads to gain a scrum penalty. George Hussey took a quick tap but was
illegally held up and Mitch Waters claimed the 3 points.

The Bridport scrum was now starting to dominate forcing errors from Ellingham & Ringwood resulting in a clean break by Dave Cutting with good support from Nathan Herbert to go over for the first unconverted try.

From the kick off Herbert made a long clearance kick from which Ellingham & Ringwood ran back strongly into the
Bridport 22 and – despite a superb last ditch tackle from Cutting – they scored near the posts for a converted
try.

The hosts came back strongly at the Daggers who were forced to concede a penalty near the posts which was surprisingly missed. Bridport soon took advantage of this miss and with a dominant scrum, giving their backs good ball, they forced a penalty in the 22 quickly taken by Mitch Waters to score which he converted.

The Daggers were now pressurising and seeking a third score before half time, after a good break by Oscar Tompkins he was unfortunately injured and replaced by Jack Streeter who made a immediate impact with a strong run into the 22, but was turned over and Ellingham & Ringwood were able to clear their lines.

The second half started with Streeter continuing his impressive form, chasing a well placed grubber kick-off from Nathan Herbert and making a strong tackle that forced a turnover. The resulting offload allowing Waters in for his second converted try.

Bridport were then caught napping in their own 22 when Ellingham & Ringwood took a quick tap to score their second converted try.

From the kick off the Daggers wasted some good scrum ball with unforced errors but eventually forced
Ellingham & Ringwood to turnover the ball and Waters fed the impressive Streeter who scorched down the wing for an unconverted try, extending the Blues lead to 27-14.

From the restart Herbert cleared long into the Ellingham & Ringwood 22 and Streeter was unlucky to knock on following an impressive chase. Ellingham & Ringwood then forced some excellent defence from the Daggers before another quickly taken penalty and strong run into the opponents 22 by Alex Perkin, with an excellent offload to Harry Richardson, for the 5 th try converted by Waters.

Ellingham & Ringwood now enjoyed their best period of the match, camped on the Blues try line and after a superb period of defence they eventually drove over for a consolation try to leave the final score at 34-19.

For his excellent marshalling of the scrum and ball distribution Bridport scrum half James Tuck was awarded Bridport’s Man of the Match.

Bridport’s next game is at home to Wimborne on 26 th October, kick-off is at 15:00.