Esso looked to be staging a magnificent fightback in their friendly with United Services on Saturday - but they ended up losing 19-15.

They recovered well from a 14-0 half-time deficit with Jason Jones, Gwilym Rees (tries), Gus James (conversion, penalty) scoring, only for a solitary US second-half try to seal the result.

On a good day for Trojans, the first XV won 20-6 at Salisbury II and the seconds accounted for Overton 8-6.

Trojans introduced a number of newcomers to first team action with New Zealander Greg Tattersfield being outstanding. Tim Savage (2), Steve LeBas (tries), James Penning-ton (conversion, penalty) scored for Trojans at Salisbury.

Havant won a high-scoring friendly thriller 49-38 at Windsor by outscoring their hosts nine tries to six.

Five newcomers scored with two of them, Francis Moore and Lyndon Burrell, notching a brace of tries apiece. Tony Russell, Paul Gair, Dylan Raubenheimer, Sam Khana, Adam Jewitt (tries), Roger Chadwick (2 conversions) were their other scorers.

Less successful were Fareham Heathens, who went down 28-8 at home to Chichester III. Tom Thompson (try), Wayne Baragh (penalty) scored for Heathens. Eastleigh lost 51-7 to Bourne-mouth II at Bishopstoke despite debutant Robert Sallows grabbing their only try, which Martin Roberts converted.

Petersfield are unbeaten and top of Hampshire 1 but they were given a fright by Ports-mouth II before eventually winning 14-10.

Two Hampshire League 3 fixtures resulted in further heavy defeats for Waterlooville and Brockenhurst.

Kingsclere annihilated Water-looville 127-3 to continue their impressive start and further demonstrate what an influx of new blood can do for a club.

Brockenhurst have yet to win a league game since entering the competition last term and continued their sequence of heavy defeats with a 90-7 loss at Portsmouth University, the third time Brockenhurst have conceded more than 90 points in four league outings this term.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.