Chichester II 7 - Ellingham and Ringwood 69

Our 1st XV travelled to Chichester to face their 2nd XV in a rearranged fixture in Hampshire Counties 2 to try and keep their dream alive of promotion and possibly winning the league and they travelled without their captain Henry Benson who was in Dublin watching the England game.

On a bright sunny afternoon, we got off to a fine start when our fly half Tom Veneroso skipped through for the opening try after a couple of minutes. But Chichester fought back and utilised their pace in the back line to full effective with their right winger Thomas Pink cutting a good line to score a try which they were able to convert to take the lead, to the delight of their home crowd. This appeared to spur our forwards into action and our number 8 David Budd crashed through the home team's defence to restore the visitors lead with our full back Chris Frost kicking the conversion. Chris Frost then ran from deep and after some good link up play scored a well worked try that he was able to convert. Then to neatly end the first half, Tom Veneroso went over for his second try of the game to make the half time score 7 - 24.

Tom's brother Sam Veneroso, playing at scrum half, then took over the scoring duties when he weaved through the home team's defence to score his first try of the game with Chris Frost kicking the conversion. Then Chris Frost, who was having a fine game, got his second try of the game after cutting through the home team's defence and again he kicked the conversion. Then came probably the try of the game. Our inside centre Phil Todd ran from deep slicing through the home team's defence to provide his fellow centre Ben Carey a sublime off-load to allow Ben to crash over from five metres out.

Our head coach Alan Steel then rang the changes and David Budd was replaced by Brad Thomas at number eight. Thomas soon crashed over to score a good try and Chris Frost again kicked the conversion. Then to match his brother Sam Veneroso scored his second try of the game in the far corner of the pitch, which this time, Chris Frost was unable to convert. Then Ellingham's hooker Pat Fraser, returning from a ski trip with fellow forward Mike Treloar, smashed through a number of Chichester's defenders to score the penultimate try of the game which once again Chris Frost was able to convert. To round off the day Chris Frost secured his hat trick of tries with another one of his mazy runs from deep to score under the posts and he converted to make the final score 7 - 69.

This means with one game to go, at local rivals Fordingbridge, our dream of promotion and even winning the league is very much alive .