MINETY’S hopes of a Dorset & Wilts One North promotion play-off place took another blow at Royal Wootton Bassett 2nd on Saturday as the villagers slipped to a second straight league defeat and surrendered second place in the league to their local rivals.

In dreadful conditions, with driving rain and a swirling crosswind, Minety withstood early Bassett pressure before camping out on the home side’s line for over 10 minutes without scoring.

A Dale Langdown effort was ruled out by the referee as Minety launched wave upon wave of attacks on the Bassett line.

Reduced to 14 men after conceding a series of penalties, the home side adapted to the conditions far better as the half wore on.

Keeping the ball in close and with clever touch kicking, Bassett forced their way back into the match and scored the opening points in the final minute of the half with a converted try.

All hopes that Minety might get something out the match were extinguished in the first 10 minutes of the second half when the home side ran in a further three tries.

With the forwards visibly tiring in the heavy conditions, Minety were no match for their fierce rivals and conceded a fifth try in the closing minutes.

Coach Andy Ward said: “Too often we were stationery when we should have been driving over the ball.

"Bassett enjoyed lots of quality ball while we had to make do with scraps.

"We needed to put a score on the board after all that first half pressure and should have adapted better to the conditions.

"Our lack of ‘on pitch’ training is really telling; we haven’t hand a home match at Minety for a month and we haven’t been able to train on our pitches since before Christmas.”

Captain Andrew Hibbard added: “We made really hard work of it.

"I felt we dominated great swathes of the first half but just couldn’t get the ball over the line despite our possession.

"The loss makes next week’s match against Melksham even more important; we’ve got to get back to the type of rugby that served us so well in the first half of the season.”

Minety 2nd's Dorset & Wilts Three North home match with Warminster 2nd was abandoned at half time with the teams locked at 12-12.

The Minety Fields pitch passed an early morning inspection but heavy rain right up to kick off turned it into a quagmire leaving the referee with little choice other than to abandon the match.