The Kipling rhyme that advises us to "keep our heads while all around are losing theirs" could have been written for Bournemouth Dolphins.

After weeks of turmoil among the club's grown-ups, the kids posted a 50-race reminder of what it's really all about - and proved that they, at least, have not lost the plot.

In their opening Premier Division Speedo League West gala at Littledown, Dolphins exceeded even coach Graham Bassi's expectations by winning with a 14-point victory margin.

The contest was given extra spice by the involvement of Ferndown Otters and was also an excellent advertisement for south east Dorset swimming with the local rivals repeatedly trading the lead as the other four teams slipped out of sight.

They were also level on five separate occasions before Dolphins took the lead for the last time on event 34 and gradually increased it. It would have been even closer but for a relay disqualification for Ferndown.

Their scores left them second and third in the table on gala points and top-seeded with Millfield for the second round.

Between them, the two clubs finished first in 41 of the 50 races - 23 for Ferndown, 18 for Bournemouth, while Otters had 11 seconds and Dolphins 17.

"It was an emotional night," said Bassi. "I honestly never thought we were going to win.

"It was an outstanding team performance in which we improved on last year's first round in 40 out of 50 events.

"The standard of Ferndown and ourselves was extremely high and that's great for the future of swimming in Dorset."

Ferndown coach Tony Watson said: "Our first-round target was to close the gap on Tigersharks and Bournemouth, who both beat us in the final last year.

"We achieved that against a very strong Bournemouth performance, particularly as they made the national finals last time. Hopefully we can make the final and target some strong clubs in a long course pool."

The tone was set from the start as former British champion Alex Savage won the 200m individual medley for Dolphins in 2:22.00 from her ex-Ferndown team-mate Emily Freeman (2:22.64). There was no-one else within five seconds.

Former Dolphin Chris Campbell then marked his first swim for Ferndown with victory in the men's medley (2:10.36).

He also won a 100m butterfly thriller, trailing Bournemouth's Will Harrison for 99 metres before snatching victory on the touch (58.43 to 58.81).

Ferndown had three other double winners - Craig Freeman and Zoe Watson, who won both the boys' and girls' 15/u 100m backstroke and freestyle, and Fran Hughes, who held off Savage in the women's 100m breaststroke and returned later to take the 15/u breast.

Ferndown's other individual winners were Dominic Macdonald and Cat Close in the men's and women's 100m backstroke, Noah Vides and Clodagh Dear in the 10-11yrs 50m breaststroke, Nicole Scott (women's 100m butterfly), Emily Freeman (women's 100m freestyle), Fiona Hardie (13/u 100m butterfly) and Naomi Vides (13/u 100m breaststroke). Dolphins' national age group multi-medallist Joe Poynter was also a double winner, taking the 13/u 100m breaststroke and butterfly.

Jack Thorpe and Africa Mason won the boys' and girls' 13/u 100m freestyle and Jay Olenicz and Natalie Moore the 13/u 100m backstroke.

Other individual wins came from David Bogaard in the men's 100m breaststroke, Will Harrison in the men's 100m freestyle, Martin Littlefair in the 15/u 100m breaststroke and Amelia Maughan in the 11/u 50m freestyle. Ferndown won eight relays, Bournemouth seven.

Result: 1 Dolphins 249, 2 Otters 235, 3 Tigersharks 176, 4 Tornadoes and Thornbury 131, 6 Barnstaple 129.