SALISBURY travelled to Wimborne with the mini Beast from the East blowing around their ears and would have been forgiven for thinking that it was more than the elements contriving against them as their kit failed to make the same journey.

Wearing Wimborne’s second strip the city side took the pitch and within 10 minutes had lost Nick Wotton with a badly cut eye.

Wotton was replaced by Theo Daniel who had to be replaced himself within minutes as he suffered a bad double dislocation of the fingers and was carted off to join his team mate in the physio room.

Despite these problems Salisbury bent their backs to the task and quick hands from Josh Green saw Gary Constable finally open his scoring account on his 45th appearance for the club; the younger supporters present are hoping to be around for his second!

The visitors maintained this lead in the blizzard until half time and turned around five points to the good.

Wimborne scored early in the second half and added the conversion points to set home tails wagging, but Chris Beaumont galloped in for a score from a long way out to put the visitors back in front with Rory MacTaggart making light of the conditions to stroke the conversion over.

From a home defensive scrummage Jon Bird tackled the Wimborne ball carrier and fly half Ollie Bowden was in like lightning, ripping the ball free and diving over for a score.

The bonus point try came when Bobby Saunders ran a hard line at a ruck and crashed over.

MacTaggart, who only converts tries scored by forwards, made sure of the extra points and the spoils went to the visitors.

This was a sound performance after a difficult start and special mention must go to the midfield stalwart Christian Metson, approaching his hundredth appearance, who used his speed and bulk to make three breaks and was only denied a score when the ball squirted loose as he dived for the line.

Salisbury are on the road again next week with a tricky trip to under achieving Bicester but they will be far from complacent.

Salisbury United defeated the weather but could not overcome a very useful Bournemouth team.

Despite a large number of changes, Salisbury were able to put together some very good passages of play, prominent throughout were skipper Jake McConnell, lock Rob Becher and the ever sharp Kit Pickford, but they were unable to profit from their efforts.

The better organised Bournemouth defence held out against everything Salisbury threw at them, surviving two forward drives that would have brought just reward for all of Salisbury’s efforts up front, but it was the sharpness of Bournemouth’s back-line that was the difference, running in five tries for a deserved 29-0 victory.