Trowbridge finished their first league campaign in the South West Two East division with a narrow defeat by fourth placed Swanage and Wareham on Saturday.

Bolstered by the return of Alex Hill from injury, this was a game that Trowbridge could and should have won.

Trowbridge took the game to the visitors right from the start and only a couple of miss-timed passes prevented Trowbridge from crossing the visitors line early in the game.

However, the early pressure from Trowbridge caused Swanage and Wareham to concede a couple of penalties and the ever consistent Lloyd Davis was able to put Trowbridge into a 6:0 lead.

Too many mistakes by the visitors, soon allowed Lloyd Davis to increase the Trowbridge lead with another penalty kick, but a mistake by Trowbridge out wide allowed the visitors fly half, David Elford, to pick up a loose ball and scramble over for an unconverted try in the corner.

From the resultant kick-off another lapse in concentration from Trowbridge allowed the Swanage and Wareham winger Charlie Parish to cleverly chip the ball over his opposite number and win the race to score the visitors second try.

The conversion was again missed, but as the half time whistle went, Trowbridge trailed 9:10.

Whatever was said to the Trowbridge team during the half time break seemed to inspire them and Trowbridge started the second half with a superbly worked try for Ashley Chalk, one of the leagues leading try scorers.

The ball was won by the Trowbridge forwards near their own line and following some superb handling by both backs and forwards, the ball was quicklly moved up the field on the right hand side before Chalk crossed the line wide out on the left. Lloyd Davis just failed to add the extra two points for the conversion.

However, the visitors responded with two penalty goals by Phil Graves following some Trowbridge indiscretions to give them a 14:16 lead going into the last quarter.

Trowbridge again took the lead after the their forwards managed to exert a lot of pressure on the visitors scrum resulting in a wayward pass being picked up by Ali Lund to score an unconverted try wide out.

For the remainder of the match, Trowbridge were on the defence as the visitors mounted a series of attacks and in the dying minutes of the game, the Swanage and Wareham full back Darren Wilcox joined the line to create an overlap and scored a try which was converted by Phil Graves allowing the visitors to win the match 19:23.

This defeat left Trowbridge a creditable seventh after their first season in the South West 2 (E) division. A position that the club will be confident to improve upon next season.

Next Saturday, Trowbridge travel to near neighbours Frome RFC for the much awaited semi-final match in the Bath combination cup. Kick-off is scheduled for 3pm”.