DEVIZES were leapfrogged in the Southern Counties South table as North Dorset won the fourth-versus-fifth battle at London Road.

The home side, 26-24 winners at their rivals in November, were up against it early on as the visitors' strong pack made inroads and Devizes fell foul of the referee's whistle.

Eventually the pressure told as a move down the left flank saw Tom Hooper go over in the corner for an unconverted try.

The home side, who welcomed Josh Lewis back into the back row and shifted Rory Brown to full-back with Tom Collins at scrum-half, hit back as Andy Thompson kicked to touch and a maul allowed Josh Gould to burrow over for the equalising score.

North Dorset came flying back at Devizes and pressurised Devizes into making mistakes.

One such error was pounced upon by Robbie Sampson after a Devizes lineout, ten metres from their line was palmed back, allowing the North Dorset scrum-half to collect and evade a couple of tackles to go over.

Devizes lost influential flanker Craig Bryant with a head injury - to be replaced by Scott Martin - but before the break the visitors were battering away at the Devizes try line, kept at bay by some resolute defence.

North Dorset rode an initial home storm at the start of the second period and their third try arrived soon after, before Sam Baker extended the advantage with a penalty.

Gould managed to hold up North Dorset number eight Adam Trevis over the try line and then winger Mindaugas Kazlauskas was nearly through only for Lewis to make a try-saving tackle.

Both sides had a man sent to the sin-bin and Gould was held up over the line before Devizes gained some reward, a number of phases close to the North Dorset try line allowing Collins to go on one of his trademark runs to burrow over from close range.

Thompson added the conversion as Devizes sniffed a comeback, but despite a late break by Brown, Dorset's defence held firm.