Winchester Penguins' Julia Beckett enhanced her reputation as one of the south's brightest young swimming prospects with a string of top placings at the third Luxembourg International.

She was one of a handful of local swimmers who helped a comparatively tiny South of England squad to finish a strong sixth overall in a massive 63-team field drawn from 19 countries.

Beckett, whose age-group silver medal last summer marked a sharp move up the rankings, has continued to improve since.

In the Duchy, she opened by placing fourth junior in the 100m backstroke, improved to take silver in the junior 50m backstroke (for third overall in the B final) in 31.95sec.

She peaked with junior gold in the 50m freestyle - and her 27.97 placed her seventh overall in the meet's A final for mixed senior and junior.

A sixth spot in the 200m backstroke B final rounded off a thoroughly successful weekend for the Penguins swimmer on her South of England debut.

Alex Savage stormed to junior gold medal and sixth overall in the 200m medley, the event in which she broke through to make the senior winter nationals final in Sheffield in December.

The Romsey & Totton prodigy, who moved late last year to Ferndown Otters and is now reportedly linked with City of Southampton, placed second in the 100m butterfly B final.

The South team captain, Fareham Nomads' Hannah Clegg, made the finals of both 50m and 100m open backstroke, placing eighth and fifth overall respectively.

Nomads' team-mate Rebecca Newman ranked well but missed out on finals in her four freestyle and butterfly events.

Portsmouth Northsea's sole representative, Lauren Short, produced a stunning 33.39sec swim to win the senior 50m breaststroke and set a new meet record - adding a fourth in the 100m (1.14.06) to help the South rack up the points.

They were beaten only by the Ukraine national squad, the overall winners, German and French club teams, a Portuguese national combination, and just by the English Midlands team.

The South squad's next outing, finances permitting, should be to a similar international in Portugal in July.