ANDOVER were prepared for a physical encounter and so it turned out.

From the start, the powerful Portsmouth forwards showed just how they wanted to play the game, pushing hard into the Andover defence to get a chance at “first blood” but missed an easy penalty.

Much-improved Andover soon settled to take a firm grasp of the game and showing some real quality pinned the visitors into their half with relentless attacking rugby, which soon led to a penalty of their own.

Unfortunately this was also missed but the intensity showed no signs of slowing and as tempers flared a player from each team was shown yellow. From a scrum in front of the posts and the "All Blacks" drove the visitors back for Arron Hatcher to score but after the restart Portsmouth scored a penalty but this was the only threat the visitors posed before the break.

After just five minutes, strong running from Stefan Long gave Andover the chance to add another try through Dean Andrews.

Portsmouth sensed the game was starting to slip from their grasp and after ten minutes of throwing everything at Andover they were rewarded with a try.

Andover regrouped and with three minutes remaining, from a long field kick the ever improving Tommy Gentleman, collected and cut through for Long whose strong running saw him break two tackles and off load for Churchill to cross the line for Andover’s third try converted by Rich Woodley and the second win of the season was in the bag.