TROWBRIDGE head coach Dan Jeffries conceded that his side’s hopes of promotion this term were diminished as they fell to a 36-17 defeat away to Wimborne.

The Southern Counties South leaders had the beating of Trowbridge out wide and scored early before the visitors' forwards took control of the game.

Tom Weaver missed two ambitious penalties before Dan Greenslade scored from a maul, after the forwards had put Trowbridge in a good position, Weaver converted.

Straight from the kick-off, Wimborne broke and scored to put themselves 12-7 up.

However, when Ashley Chalk, acting as a decoy runner, was taken out off the ball, knocking him out, it proved a turning point in the game, with the referee stopping the game for the injury but unable to cite the offending player.

That left Trowbridge without one of their standout backs before scrum-half George Lea dislocated his shoulder.

Despite two tries from Shane Johnson and Max Day, they proved in vain as the hosts pulled away in the latter stages.

“It means that promotion is probably not going to happen this year,” admitted Jeffries.

“We always thought it was realistically a two-year job but the middle part of the season went particularly well and we got ourselves in the hunt.

“Saturday probably identified that our forwards are comfortably the best in the league but Wimborne do have the best back line and showed it when it counted.”

With five games left of the season, Jeffries is still eyeing a top-three finish but is also looking ahead to building the foundations for next season.

“We’ll hopefully finish third because we have got a reasonable run in compared to the other teams,” he added.

“Over the summer, we have got some good colts coming through that I will be able to have a look at bringing into the squad.”

“For us it is about building to go forward and actually making sure we take all the positives from this season and hit the ground running in September and the two year plan will come to fruition.”