THE Hampshire Caffrey's Bowl has been seriously devalued by the actions of so many clubs withdrawing.

Portsmouth University failed to play Fleet in the first round, and then yesterday's second round saw Hampshire Constabulary, Overton and Fleet all opt out.

This left Southampton Institute, Fareham Heathens and Millbrook with walk-overs.

From the second round games that were played, Eastleigh deserve special mention for restricting New Milton to a 13-10 winning margin.

Although New Milton are currently almost bottom of Hampshire 1, Eastleigh are a lowly Hampshire 2 side, so a three points margin of defeat was a tremendous achievement by the hosts.

In fact the Eastleigh chairman, Brian Russell-Taylor moaned: "We should have stitched it up early in the second-half after leading 10-3 at half-time thanks to a penalty try.

"Jeff Bird and David Mahoney were outstanding in a great performance by the pack."

New Milton secretary, Nick Hanmer confirmed his side had only sealed victory late in the game.

He remarked: "Eastleigh could count themselves unlucky, although I thought we deserved the victory overall."

Fordingbridge went through 28-7 at Isle of Wight on a pitch both sides considered virtually unplayable. Steve Lacy for Isle of Wight stormed: "It was ridiculous. The pitch was a complete mess and the game should never have been played."

Fordingbridge skipper, Chris Langford agreed, adding: "Conditions were atrocious.

"We dominated the first-half and built a 21-0 lead. We had in our new fly-half, Angus Reid, and he had an outstanding game."

Sandown & Shanklin from Hampshire 1 proved far too strong for the Hampshire 3 outfit, AC Delco, and romped to a 56-5 victory

However, Sandown & Shanklin only scored eight tries, and Delco deserve great credit for defending well and scoring a try of their own.

Guernsey defeated Les Quennevais 34-17 in the Channel Islands tussle. While the remaining tie between Hamble and Alresford was postponed until next Sunday.

Trojans Women returned to winning ways in their South East Division 3 game at Isle of Wight.

A couple of conversions from Kat Wood proved decisive in a 14-10 win as both sides scored two tries.