On an afternoon laden with life and death drama and off-the-ball incidents, Vasco produced, if not the goals, the expected result to maintain their position at the top of the table.

Those who forecast an avalanche of goals from Vasco, based on both teams' recent performances, could not have foreseen the frantic and often undisciplined way this match unfolded.

By the time the final whistle had blown, one player was in hospital and three others on the sidelines after receiving their marching orders.

Eagles' Gary Mallory was rushed to hospital by ambulance after a frightening clash of heads. And Vasco suffered problems of their own, finishing with just nine men after both striker Corey Hill and goalkeeper Timmy Figureido received red cards.

The match was drama-filled from the time Vasco took the lead in the 11th minute. From a corner, three players jumped to meet the ball and Dwight Basden headed home. But at the same time Mallory fell to the ground, where he lay motionless for several minutes.

He recovered sufficiently to attempt to stand, but fell almost immediately.

Taken off the pitch, Mallory lost consciousness and CPR was administered by former referee John Bento, a spectator at the game.

An ambulance was called and the game only resumed after a 15-minute delay, with Jerome Richards substituting for Mallory.

The nature of the injuries to Mallory's forehead suggested that an errant elbow had unintentionally caught him on the way down, although there was no suggestion from anyone on the Somerset team of intentional foul play.

With Somerset maintaining a tight and well-disciplined offside trap, much of the remainder of the first half followed a simple pattern, with Eagles pulling forward whenever the ball entered their half and Vasco trying time and again to find a way to beat the trap.

Eagles had very little of the first half play and appeared resigned to defending. Vasco piled on the pressure, with Corey Hill, given endless amounts of room on the right, mounting raid after raid on Eagles' goalkeeper Cordell Gilbert, to no avail.

Just before the first half-hour of play had elapsed, Vasco set up another attack, inevitably on the right. The ball came loose to Hill, who attempted an angled shot which he sliced into the centre of the field. And with superb agility, Shawn Smith rose to meet the ball with his head, twisting as he climbed, to steer it past the Somerset 'keeper into the top right-hand corner of the net.

With Vasco now 2-0 to the good, and Somerset making little headway, Smith's magnificent effort looked set to seal the match.

A few minutes later, Somerset's Eddie Callender tripped Derek Stapley and received a yellow card for his troubles, the first of a busy afternoon.

If the first half had been eventful for all the wrong reasons, the second saw little football and a succession of off-the-ball incidents, bookings and flaring tempers.

Six minutes into the half, with Vasco entirely dominant, Hill received his marching orders for ungentlemanly conduct, reducing Vasco to ten men. With the game descending into a scrappy and formless state, further trouble always looked possible, and ten minutes later, Warren Iris became the second Somerset player booked for ungentlemanly conduct.

With 22 minutes gone in the second half, Vasco increased their lead to three when Karl Roberts picked up the ball just inside the Somerset half, beating the offside trap with sheer pace. He raced forward and slid the ball past Gilbert from 25 yards out.

With the points decided, the only question remaining was how many players would see the game out. Within a few minutes, Vasco keeper Timmy Figureido, who had been tested rarely, came out to meet an oncoming Eagles player, who he brought down with a clumsy tackle a few yards outside the penalty area.

Figureido did not argue when the foul brought an automatic red card, although he said later that he had slipped.

Roberts donned the keeper's jersey for Vasco, now down to nine men, but was not called on to do much in the balance of the game.

With every decision hotly contested, play now took place mostly in a narrow corridor either side of the centre line. Somerset appeared to be inching their way back into the game, when with five minutes left, Anthony Basden chose to argue with the referee, and became the third player ordered off, for dissent.

Somerset Eagles: C.Gilbert, W.Wellman, F.Smith (S Burrows, 50 mins), G.Mallory (J.Richards, 11 mins), C.Williams, W.Iris, A.Basden, E.Callender, O.Riley, D.Minors, R.Wilson.

Vasco : T.Figureido, D.Stapley, S.Smith, K.Jennings, E.Richardson, K.Roberts, V.Astwood, F.Simmons (P.Richardson, 66 mins), C.Hill, I.Burgess (W.Kirkpatrick, 14 mins), D.Basden (A.Woolf, 78 mins).

Men of the Match : Oscar Riley (Somerset Eagles), Karl Roberts (Vasco) Referee : Cal Simons GARY MALLORY -- taken by ambulance to hospital after suffering a serious head injury.