AFC TOTTON had to settle for fourth place in Weymouth FC’s 125th Anniversary Tournament.

But beating eventual tournament winners Torquay United was a huge feather in the cap for Steve Hollick’s Stags.

With Nathaniel Sherborne, Mike Gosney, Dave Allen, Liam Hibberd, Luke Dempsey, Nick Watts and Ellis White all unavailable, Totton were well short of full strength for the one-day tournament which comprised games of 15 minutes each way.

But they could not have asked for a better start as, with just eight minutes of their opening fixture gone, Craig Feeney was bundled over in the area and dusted himself down to bury the penalty to secure a 1-0 win over Torquay.

The Gulls hit the crossbar two minutes later but Totton held strong for a well-deserved victory.

The Stags’ second match was a far tougher affair against a young AFC Bournemouth side and it needed a fantastic double save by newly-signed goalkeeper Kieran Greene from Basingstoke Town to deny Cherries under-21s an early opener.

But come half-time Bournemouth were two goals to the good and they eventually ran out 3-0 winners thanks to a Joe Quigley strike and two from trialist Ben Pope.

Striker Pope recently signed a one-year deal with Worthing after trials with Norwich, Stoke City and Cambridge United last season, but the Ryman League outfit would not stand in his way if the chance to join a professional club were to arise.

With several Totton players having featured in an 8-1 friendly win over Team Solent the previous evening, tiredness had inevitably begun to set in prior to the final game against hosts Weymouth.

After a goalless first half, a promising move between Feeney and new strike signing Mark Lilley was scuppered by the offside flag.

Totton No1 Steve Mowthorpe then made an outstanding save to keep out a long-range effort and it looked as if honours would end even until George Rigg popped up with a last-gasp decider to tip the balance 1-0 in the Terras’ favour.

Those two defeats left Totton at the bottom of the final league table with three points, just adrift of Weymouth and Bournemouth who collected four points apiece.

Tournament winners Torquay recovered from their early defeat by the Stags to beat Weymouth 1-0 and Stephen Purches’s young Cherries 2-0 to take the crown with six points.

Next up for the Stags is a visit from Tom Killick's Poole Town on Thursday (July 23, 7.45pm).