'We were soundly beaten by a team desperate for a first win' - head coach Gareth Richards' honest assessment as Portsmouth RFC are defeated at rock-bottom Basingstoke

For Basingstoke, it was 17th time lucky this term as they finally claimed a first triumph, defeating Portsmouth 31-17.

But for a disappointed Richards the loss made it nine consecutive away defeats so far this season for his third-bottom squad.

And the Portsmouth head coach felt bottom-side Basingstoke just wanted the victory more on the day then what his team did.

‘We're still searching (for a first away win). We just seem to struggle away from home, there's no denying it,’ said Richards.

‘We were soundly beaten by a team desperate for a first win, credit to them, they were better than us on the day.

‘Ultimately we just didn't match their physicality right from the minute go. In rugby there's no getting away from if you don not have some sort of parity when you get to the physical confrontations then the game is very difficult at that point.

‘They were up for it, they had some big, strong runnrs we didn't deal with, they were on the front-foot, we defended large parts of the game and we ultimately paid the price. Credit to them, they wanted the game more than we did.’

Jashan Solanki and Anthony Fooks ran in tries as Portsmouth battled back from 12-0 down to go in at the break with the score all square at 12-12.

But Basingstoke added a further two scores after the restart to collect a four try bonus-point. Finn Parry briefly pulled the score back to 24-17 but the struggling hosts ran in a fifth try to ensure Portsmouth were the first time they inflicted defeat on this season.