GLAMORGAN'S season is heading into freefall after a crushing six wickets defeat with a mammoth 10.5 overs to spare by Hampshire in the C and G Trophy at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff, yesterday.

Ten games in all competitions this season and six defeats (winning one of three hit by rain on the Duckworth/Lewis method) is such a miserable reward that even a second overseas player may already be too late to make a large difference.

The loss of Steve James and Adrian Dale in the past two seasons, the imminent retirement of Matthew Maynard and the injuries and potential England call-ups for players Simon Jones and Alex Wharf has proved and is likely to continue to prove too great an obstacle to overcome.

A losing team is not the best into which to introduce a number of young players, but Glamorgan have had no choice.

Glamorgan's home-grown talent were yesterday blown away by a Hampshire side full of overseas players, two Australians, two from Zimbabwe and two from South Africa, the last four EU qualified.

All of them, opener Nic Pothas, who scored his first one-day century in Britain, fellow Johannesburg-born England one-day star Kevin Pietersen with a blistering 69 not out, Zimbabwe rebel Sean Ervine with five wickets and masterly skipper Shane Warne, the greatest ever leg-spinner, played vital roles.

It meant Hampshire easily passed Glamorgan's 214 all out and scored their sixth C and G success in seven clashes with Glamorgan.

Afterwards Warne defended his county's policy and said home players often improved playing alongside foreign stars, but he did not criticise Glamorgan's decision to go with home talent.

Glamorgan were given a lightning start yesterday, primarily by Newport-born opener Ian Thomas, who crashed three boundaries in the second over off Richard Logan.

He scored 27 and with Croft put on 45 in six overs and a competitive total of around 270 looked likely.

But once Croft had played on to England development squad paceman Chris Tremlett and Thomas had guided Ervine to Warne at second slip to make it 51-2, Glamorgan went downhill.

Abergavenny-born Mike Powell scored 56 in 73 balls with two sixes off Warne and four fours, but along with most of the Glamorgan batsmen ultimately fell to a poor shot, in his case an attempted pull off too full a delivery.

From 138-3 Glamorgan lost their last seven wickets for 76 runs in 18 overs, scoring a paltry 32 off the last ten, as Warne used himself and his fellow spinners plus astute field placings to exert pressure, and 214 was not good enough.

It didn't look so bad when Andrew Davies bowled Aussie opener Simon Katich for a duck to the second ball of the Hampshire innings or when the visitors were reduced to 89-4 by another Davies wicket and a Simon Jones double strike.

But Pothas sailed on and found the perfect partner in Pietersen.

The pair's match-winning stand started quietly but gradually Pietersen opened out with fierce leg-side pulls and wristy flicks.

He took a liking to Glamorgan's Dean Cosker whom he struck for three sixes, leaving one ball lost, as the left-armer's 4.1 overs cost 47. In all they put on an unbeaten 130 in 22 overs, Pothas' 114 in 127 balls including a six and 12 fours and Pietersen adding four fours in his 64-ball knock.

Glamorgan had no answer and long before the end their body language suggested a team so lacking in confidence it is difficult to see how they can recover.