Saints blew away the Christmas cobwebs with a solid performance against the new boys of Hampshire One, East Dorset.

The visitors started the game strongly and dominated much of the first half. The early pressure was rewarded with tries for Julian Robbins and Alex Scott, conceivably scoring his 1,000,000th try in Saints colours.

But despite being in control of the game, Saints showed some belated seasonal goodwill in conceding four needless penalties, allowing East Dorset to stay in touch. Some confusion in the Saints defence also proved costly, gifting the home side a soft try to keep things tight.

East Dorset came out stronger after the break and overturned lots of Saints' earlier dominance. It took a change of game plan by the Hampshire sidevto restore control - a tactic that pleased coach Graham Harris; "We'd been talking in training about reacting to the other team and changing things if you need to, so I'm really, delighted."

Jules ended the day with three tries, the pick of which saw him linking up well with Jason Kehoe, who cut through the defence like greased neoprene. A neat pass back to Jules left the flying postman clear to run in under the poss. Pierre had a solid day with the boot and kept the scoreboard ticking, while Jamie Stewart was a constant pain in the Dorset arse at flanker.

The last ten minutes proved nervy as Dorset finished off a neat move to bring themselves within one point, but some heroic defence kept the visitors ahead at the final whistle. Saints won 27-26 to take them to sixth place in the league, leapfrogging US Pompey who entertain Southampton next week in the Cup.