GOATACRE decided to take their mauling at the hands of Potterne in good spirit, with skipper Brad Dawson saying the players “just had to laugh” at being dismissed for just 66 at Bishops Cannings.

Seven players registered ducks as Goatacre were skittled inside 21 overs in their opening Premier Two clash, with Ben Mason claiming 5-32 and Joshua De Souza 3-3 as Potterne defended their total of 202 with ridiculous ease.

Dawson admitted that after the game all he could do was have a chuckle at a bizarre collapse that saw Goatacre lost nine wickets for 31 runs, to slip from 35-1 to 66 all out.

He said: “It was pretty tough. Seven ducks is pretty embarrassing. I played a pretty poor shot, Colesy (Matt Coles) did the same, Jif (Wilkins) was hit in the hand by Jake (Roberts) quite early on and his thumb’s pretty bad at the minute. It shouldn’t get any worse than what it did but I think Potterne will do very well.

“I think they could easily go top three or win it.

“We had them 140-7 and they just batted sensibly.

“They didn’t try to hit it out of the park and just got up to a respectable score and bowled us out.

“Batting-wise, I just said in the changing room afterwards that we’ve just got to laugh about it. You can’t really say much when you get bowled out for 60-odd.

“If we got up to 150 or 160 and gave us a chance you can say something, but when you’re 30-1 and 50-7, or something silly like that, you just can’t.

“You’ve just got to laugh about it.”

Goatacre had been buoyed pre-match by the availability of Hampshire pair of Liam Dawson and Coles.

The former was the only batsman to showing any sort of staying power, making an unbeaten 26, while Coles picked up four wickets with the ball.