IN the first furious twenty minutes of this local derby, Romsey completely dominated Southampton in every facet of the game - but they weren't able to go on and claim a vital victory that would have kept them off the bottom of the table.

A penalty by Graham Noble gave Romsey a three point lead after seven minutes. Then, three minutes later, a stupendous drive by Romsey's forwards resulted in a pushover try - followed ten minutes later by a well worked move on the blind side to put Andrew LeMarechal over for his maiden try for Romsey.

With the score at 13-nil Romsey looked to be cruising to an easy victory and an early celebration of Christmas. But then it all changed. A slip resulted in an opportunist try for

Southampton shortly before half-time to leave the score at 13-5.

During the interval Romsey skipper Darren Sharpe was heard to be urging his team to continue with a merciless performance in the second half.

Unfortunately, the called-for performance came from Southampton, who threw everything into attack at every opportunity.

The defining moment came when a superb clearing penalty from Graham Noble saw the ball in touch on the Southampton 22-yard marker.

Romsey didn't chase the kick, but stood in admiration of it or ambled towards the expected line-out - while an enterprising Southampton player threw the ball in to himself and started a scoring movement from deep in his own half.

With the score now at 13-10 it was all Southampton and Romsey had lost their game plan, if not the plot.

Two minutes from time, a penalty for off-side at a ruck gave Southampton the last chance they needed. They chose to run the ball, and a burly prop crashed over for the winning score. A failed conversion did not matter; Southampton had prevailed to the tune of two points.

So after three games, Southampton have come out on top by 2-1, with a total margin of six points between the two clubs and Romsey bemoaning what might have been. Instead of putting themselves clear of the relegation zone, Romsey now share bottom place with Southampton and Old Emanuel.

Romsey: D Trentham; S Coe, K Fox, G Harbour, A LeMarechal; G Noble, D Sharpe; JJ Barber, S McCormick, R Worley; M Bellis, P Duquemin; I Nawn, A Coe, P Hudson. Sub: R Samuel.