BEMERTON Heath Harlequins took the points in a closely fought high energetic local derby at Moon Park last Saturday, as they beat visiting Laverstock and Ford 1-0.

Both sides came into the game in good form and right from the off it was clear neither side was prepared to sit back and settle.

Harlequins direct approach led to a handful of corners and free-kicks but Lavvy were proving resolute in defence.

At the other end Archie Lovegrove had two free-kicks in succession on target, the second one had Creese at full stretch, diving to his left to push away a top corner bound effort.

More chances were carved out in a frenetic first half, Lavvy's footballing quality causing the home side problems.

The second half saw a similar tempo to the game, Bemerton got on the front foot early and created the best chances, twice being denied on the line by some last ditch defending.

At the other end, Chae Sykes was causing real problems and when he turned his marker and got his shot off, only the post denied him the opener.

However on 70 minutes the solitary goal came, a dubious free-kick was sent into the box but the clearance fell to Bennett who lashed home an unstoppable effort past a diving Tom Roberts.

Laverstock continued to push and the introduction of former Harlequin's player Graham Mankin caused problems, with minutes to go his header was met by a diving Pete Fletcher, but his header went marginally passed the upright.

With the game disappearing out of the visitors grasp, their afternoon was made worse in injury time, a harshly delivered second yellow card to the impressive Archie Lovegrove meant Lavvy finished the game with 10 men and were not able to claw back the leveller.

After the match manager Laverstock manager Liam McConnell said: "I can't be prouder of the work ethic, game management and how the lads went about getting a result today. It's safe to say in any derby game you have to trust what you're doing to not lose your quality.

"Both sides were fired up and in many ways cancelled each other out at times. I'm delighted we stuck to our guns and played our style of football, we were the better side in the first half there can't be an argument for that and I think Harlies edged the second.

"Yet we've hit the post and Fletch's header at the end will give him nightmares for weeks it's the best chance of the game. I have a great group here and they are only going to get stronger, the result hurts but we have a week to regroup and use it as a platform to build another run starting next Saturday."

This weekend, Lavvy are away at Ringwood.

tomorrow night, Bemerton are at home to promotion rivals Downton and then on Saturday are away at Newport.