Victory in the Cup

Ellingham & Ringwood 1st XV travelled to league rivals Eastleigh for their third meeting of the season to compete in the Papa John's Cup to see if they could make it a hat trick of wins. Eastleigh finished one place below the visitors in the league so on paper it looked like it was going to be a close contest which it proved to be.

Ellingham & Ringwood started brightly putting the home teams defence under pressure from the off and this eventually led to them conceding a penalty which right wing Chris Frost duly slotted in-between the uprights to give Ellingham an early three-point lead after just four minutes. Ellingham continued to strive for their first try of the game with open side flanker Andrew Lorton being held up just short of the line. After this period of play, Eastleigh started to get into the game and placed Ellingham under pressure, but the visitors defence was solid until the 26th minute when their hooker Charles Boyes crashed over from a driving maul, this gave the home team a 2-point lead as they were unable to score the conversion.

This was how it remained at half time despite Chris Frost's efforts to give Ellingham the lead just before the half time whistle when he narrowly missed a penalty, making the score 5-3 in Eastleigh's favour.

In the second half Eastleigh continued to enjoy a lot of possession and in the 49th minute they went over for their second try of the game, but again they were unable to add the extra two points. Eastleigh extended their lead in the 55th minute with a penalty to make the score 13 - 3 in their favour. Ellingham finally fought back with prop George Guy powering through a gap as wide the Grand Canyon left by the home sides defence using his bulk to score Ellingham's first try of the game. With Chris Frost off the pitch with an injury kicking responsibilities were handed over to fly half Tommy Veneroso who narrowly missed the conversion.

Ellingham's fitness was to prove the key in sweltering conditions on a heavy pitch they looked the team more likely to get the next score, but Eastleigh's defence held strong and the visitors did not make life easy for themselves with two yellow cards in the second half. With the clock running down, Ellingham were awarded a penalty just inside the oppositions half, captain and scrum half Sammy Veneroso tapped quickly seeing a gap and sped off on one of his now legendary darting runs evading defenders he scored just to the left hand side of the posts to stun the home crowd and level the scores. With what was to be the final kick of the game the other half of the flying Veneroso brothers Tommy needed to slot the conversion to give the visitors a dramatic last minute victory and reach the second round of the cup to meet New Forest rivals New Milton. With nerves of steal Tommy slotted the ball between the uprights to send a jubilant Ellingham & Ringwood 1st XV into the next round and leave Eastleigh stunned at losing a game they had led since the 26th minute.