Salisbury remain top of Southern Counties (South) after a completing their 3rd successive league win away to North Dorset on Saturday. Salisbury maintained the lead for the majority of the game but weren't allowed to dominate proceedings. North Dorset clearly relished the opportunity to get stuck into Salisbury and tested them during many phases of the match.

Tom Pottage opened the scoring for Salisbury with a converted penalty after just 2 minutes but the hosts responded immediately when fly half Toby East received the ball from an attacking scrummage and ghosted through Salisbury's defence to score an unconverted try. North Dorset were then immediately put on the defensive from the restart. The visitors drove over from an attacking line-out for prop Richard West to ground the ball on 8 minutes. Salisbury attacked again; working through the phases Pottage was able to score their second try on 12 minutes. Wing Drew White (pictured) added a third score, finishing a superb handling display from Salisbury's back line. Pottage's conversion gave Salisbury a 20 - 5 lead within 20 minutes. Undeterred North Dorset set about reducing the deficit. Direct running exposed weaknesses in the visitor's defence which enabled the hosts to score twice in quick succession. With the score at 20 - 17, Salisbury regrouped and elected to kick for the corner from a penalty for second row Hamish Morton to drive over. Pottage converted and the half concluded at 27 - 17 in the visitor's favour.

North Dorset commenced the second half a man down after a yellow card. Salisbury immediately exploited this with a converted try from Pottage on 41 minutes. The match continued to swing end-to-end and North Dorset scored their 4th try on 49 minutes. This was followed by score for Salisbury's White on 50 minutes and skipper Liam Gilbert added another 10 minutes later. With the deficit now at 44 - 22, North Dorset still remained committed and continued to attack the visitors. A neat grubber kick enabled them to get behind Salisbury's defence for the final score of the match which concluded at 44 - 27 to the visitors.

Salisbury will host Oldfield Old Boys at Castle Road next Saturday.

Team: Richard Roe, Tom Pottage, Rory Davis, Chris Patterson, Drew White, Ollie Pickford, David Tonge, Richard West, Luke Esnouf, Michael Daniels, Hamish Morton, Liam Gilbert, Bertie Jones, James Kay, Nick Taylor. Subs: Phil Sutton, Dave Thorpe, Phil Carr.