FORTRESS Goodship stood firm once again as Purley John Fisher became the latest team to be put to the sword at Foxcotte Park last Saturday.

Despite yet another slow start to proceedings, Oakwood sponsored Andover withstood early pressure and gradually turned up the heat to overwhelm them with a superb display of rugby.

The combination of powerful, clever and mobile forwards and some real fire power in the backs was in the end too much for the visitors, who must have thought their luck was in in the first ten minutes.

Andover got off to a dreadful start giving away a string of penalties and then losing hard working back rower Simon Preece to a nasty looking hand injury, causing them to reorganise with Nic Reed coming into the second row and Tom Erskine the back row.

Soon after Erskine paid the price for his team’s constant offending and was yellow carded for handling at a ruck.

Purley struck the penalty to take the lead, but with a man short Andover fired the first warning shot with Rich Woodley landing a penalty of their own.

Purley immediately poured forwards to make the extra man tell and were awarded a scrum on the Andover line.

With the slope in their favour and against seven men Purley smelt blood but the Andover powerhouse went into overdrive, TomWaite struck against the head and the danger was past.

The All Blacks suddenly awoke from their slumber and with Erskine back on and an exchange of penalties the only further score, they knew they were in business.

As they slowly gained the upper hand Alex Kane stunned the visitors with a try of pure class beating two defenders and winning the race to his own kick ahead and Purley suddenly looked vulnerable.

As Andover attacked it was Purley’s turn to give away penalties and with Woodley again successful they took a useful lead into half-time with the slope to come.

Within moments of the restart Andover showed just why they are so dangerous as Kane again made a fine break and when Dave Catt fed Marc Wilding, his beautifully timed offload saw skipper Alex Morgan sprint in for a superb try converted by Woodley.

Purley to their credit struck back with a try of their own, but when man of the match Waite went close in the corner and Andy Franklin pounced on the loose ball to score from the resulting scrum, the writing was firmly on the wall.

Purley tried to come back again, but found the defence impassable and when Catt’s big hit turned over lineout possession they once again went for the throat.

From a scrum in midfield Kane fed a rampaging Niko Rowe, who powered through the cover defence to score from 40 metres.

Wilding then capped another excellent personal display going over from a lineout catch and drive.

Purley once again refused to lay down and grabbed a second score of their own but soon after Andover finally put the game to rest.

Elliott Copestake, back from injury showed he had lost none of his pace sprinting round the defence to score from 50 metres after being fed by a Wilding break.

Then to the loudest cheer of the day, Waite, a front row showing all the fleet of foot and pace of a centre, ran in for the final score of the game converted by Franklin.

Afterwards coach Andy Waite was very happy with his team: “This was a fantastic result against a good team who really tested us early on.

“We showed a lot of character to stay with them and when our power began to tell we were clever enough to take full advantage.

“We have put ourselves in with a great chance of achieving our first goal of consolidating in this league and luckily, as Simon’s injury doesn’t seem as bad as first thought, we will have a fully fit squad to choose from for the next game on the Isle of Wight in two week’s time.

We had another great crowd today who really backed us and I know the players want to thank them for their support and long may it continue.”