RAMPANT Swanage & Wareham bagged 10 tries to kick off their Southern Counties South campaign with an emphatic 59-9 victory over Dorset rivals Dorchester.

Having given away a series of early penalties, Swans found themselves narrowly behind during the opening exchanges as a hat-trick of kicks from Dorchester’s James Baker cancelled out a Charlie Parish's three-pointer and winger Karl Barton’s try.

But once Parish had set up Charlie Rowberry to score from wide the hosts were unstoppable and secured their bonus point before the break through Rowberry’s second and wing-forward Jesse Scott’s try.

Any hopes of a Dorchester revival were dealt another blow when scrum-half Chris Tomes scored the hosts’ fifth before the break.

Swans remained on the front foot throughout the second half and a drive through the visitors’ 22 ended with Parish adding number six shortly after the restart.

Rowberry completed his hat-trick from a line out before captain Robert Elford crashed over in the corner with 10 minutes to play. 

And there was still time for Tomes to score his second and second-row Darren Penney to swallow dive over the line in the latter stages.

Swanage manager Tom Dillon said: “Once we had got over our slow start we played well, especially the backs with some tricky handling and brilliant moves.

“They could only do that because the forwards won the ball at the breakdown so it was a very promising start from the whole team."

Swans: Baird, Barton, Strange, Graves (Cottrell, h-t), Rowberry, Parish, Tomes, Sheldrake, Elford, Wyburgh (Audley, 48), Collins, Penney, Scott (Wright, h-t), Ayres, Desmond.

  • Wimborne also began with a bonus-point victory, running in five tries in their 35-3 win at Corsham. 

Joe Bartlett, Rob Best, James Mikolajewski, Jim Brokenshire, Andy Unwin got over the line with Mikolajewski kicking a pair of penalties and two conversions. 

In Dorset & Wilts One South, Dorset Dockers recorded a thumping 62-0 away win at Frome II, while Oakmeadians lost 28-26 at home to Wimborne II. 

Ellingham & Ringwood kicked off with a 32-18 win over Sandown & Shanklin in London Three South West, with New Milton & District racking up a 32-28 success against London Exiles.