Malachi Jones scored twice and Somerset Trojans hung on to win 3-2 in an entertaining five-goal affair at St John’s Field.

More a comedy of errors than an epic encounter, the result was in the balance until the end.

Chasing an equaliser that they just about deserved, Dandy Town pushed forward in a frantic final few minutes — Fabian Frankson’s drilled pass ran across the face of goal, eluding his team-mates by a matter of inches. It largely summed up the home side’s luck in front of goal yesterday.

Town, the defending champions, have now lost all three of their league games this season.

Neither side truly controlled proceedings and it would have been no surprise if Dandy Town, who were three down at one stage, had come back to grab a draw, or even a win.

Ultimately, the scrappy nature of the game was in Somerset’s favour, as it took the home side more than an hour to find any real rhythm, a situation not helped by sloppy passing and poor finishing.

Not that the visiting side were much better, but they capitalised on two defensive lapses in the second half and a gift of a penalty inside the opening ten minutes.

Wendy Woodley, the assistant referee, had to be the only person in the ground who saw the handball that ultimately led to Somerset going ahead.

Certainly, Stephen Allen, the referee had no inclination to award a penalty before her intervention and the lack of any kind of appeal from the Somerset players should have been enough to suggest that she was alone in her belief that Seion Darrell, the Town defender, had handled a bouncing ball that appeared instead to strike him on the chest.

Still, given the early opportunity to go in front, Trojans were not likely to look that type of gift horse in the mouth and Leo Burgess coolly stepped up to put his side ahead.

Town had their chances to get back in to the game, but Clay Darrell had an off-day and the closest they came in the first half was when Frankson crashed a header against the crossbar from six yards out. The home side were their own worst enemies after the break. Ineffective in front of goal, they switched off twice in the space of three minutes — and Jones punished them appropriately. He put his side two up when he was quickest to a bouncing ball inside the box from a Burgess shot and then outjumped the defence to flick home a Vashun Blanchette free kick moments later.

Going 3-0 down spurred the home side into action, but they still needed some help to make the finish far more exciting than it needed to be. First, the Trojans defence fell asleep and allowed Frankson to bundle home a scuffed Darrell free kick and, with little more than ten minutes left, goalkeeper Shaquille Jones dropped the ball into his own net from another Darrell set-piece.

“We got the early lead and then it was a case of hanging on,” Trevin Ming, the Trojans captain, said. “We worked hard and that showed towards the end when we dropped off and they scored. But we’ll happily get out of here with three points.

“It’s certainly a confidence booster. We took advantage of some of their mistakes and we’ll take this into next week and build on it.”