The third day of a contest between the reigning champions and the brash newcomers to the top league was dogged by drizzle and bad light, starting late and ending early, and at lunchtime the game seemed to be pottering towards an inevitable Taunton flat-track draw. Then the home side - in spite of giving Chris Adams, the Sussex captain, three lives with dropped catches and spilling a further three - took six afternoon wickets with persistent, nagging seam bowling, and polished off the visiting team by capturing nine victims in 34 overs. Following on, Sussex lost hapless Chris Nash to his second duck of the game when he fell leg-before to Charl Willoughby's first ball.

Earlier, Michael Yardy was the first beneficiary of Somerset's generosity when Ian Blackwell fumbled a tumbling chance at gully off Willoughby. Yardy then moved beyond fifty with a straight drive to the river boundary, but on the point of lunch he strolled across his stumps and was leg-before to Ben Phillips.

The tone for the afternoon was set almost immediately when Murray Goodwin cut Phillips hard to Neil Edwards at backward point, and the procession was under way. It was interrupted only by an on-off interlude that typified the weather when after 25 minutes were lost to the light, the players trooped back, it began to rain, and they retreated just as far as the boundary before returning.

Craig Kieswetter, from Johannesburg via Millfield School, Somerset's productive sporting academy, equalled his best figures for the county behind the stumps by taking five catches, a mark he has already achieved twice, both against Glamorgan, in his brief but very promising career. To his quietly efficient work behind the stumps he adds some useful middle-order runs.

Peter Trego, back in his home county after a wandering career taking in Kent, Herefordshire and Middlesex, snipped off the Sussex tail to give Somerset renewed hope. Phillips was mean and effective, taking three for 34, while Willoughby and Steffan Jones completed a bustling quartet.

When the light dimmed just before 6pm, Carl Hopkinson and Yardy were consolidating the Sussex effort after Nash's misfortune, but Somerset will feel that only the weather can deny them.

Scoreboard
Somerset: First Innings 557 for 8 dec (J C Hildreth 158, N J Edwards 99, M E Trescothick 74, Z de Bruyn 62)
Sussex: First Innings (overnight 19-1)

C D Hopkinson lbw b Jones 49
M H Yardy lbw b Phillips 57
M W Goodwin c Edwards b Phillips 0
*C J Adams c Willoughby b Phillips 52
M J Prior c Kieswetter b Jones 1
L J Wright c Kieswetter b Willoughby 4
R S C Martin-Jenkins c Kieswetter b Trego 18
O P Rayner not out 19
J D Lewry c Kieswetter b Trego 1
C D Collymore c Kieswetter b Trego 2
Total (62.3 overs) 203

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-100, 3-104, 4-112, 5-118, 6-143, 7-172, 8-195, 9-199.
Bowling: Willoughby 16-6-43-2; Jones 16-5-53-2; Trego 11.3-2-49-3; Phillips 12-2-34-3; Blackwell 7-0-24-0.

Second Innings
C D Nash lbw b Willoughby 0
C D Hopkinson not out 16
M H Yardy not out 14
Extras (b 4, lb 1, w 1) 6
Total (1 wkt, 9.3 overs) 36

Fall of wicket: 1-0.
Bowling: Willoughby 5-0-16-1; Phillips 4.3-1-15-0.

Umpires: J H Evans and P Willey.