Gosport and Fareham 96 - Ellingham and Ringwood 5

With a string of injuries and non-availabilities, we took a much-changed team to high flying Gosport and Fareham on Saturday for our Hampshire Counties Division 1 Fixture.

The opening exchanges were fairly tight, but after just five minutes, our right wing Ben Ladle dislocated his shoulder in a tackle and he was replaced by Joel McNally, making his 1st XV debut. Gosport & Fareham applied the pressure and it did not take long for their fly half Liam Charlson to score the first try of the game which he converted and they quickly scored another try, which was not converted. With good lines run from deep, their full back George Middleton scored a good try with his electrifying pace, which was converted. Two more converted tries quickly followed with us struggling to get and keep possession or make inroads into the opposition half. Gosport & Fareham's left winger Ciaran Meachen then dived into the corner to increase their lead. We eventually managed to string some passes together and Joel Mcnally scored on his debut in the far corner, but captain and fly half Sammy Veneroso was unable to convert. Just before half time Gosport & Fareham scored another unconverted try to make the half time score 43-5.

Despite our efforts we could not increase our score in the second half, but the home team put us to the sword, scoring another eight tries with Iain Grice playing on the wing and flanker Alex Jones as well as lock forward Rikky Curtis scoring three of those eight tries.

The final score was 96-5 and Gosport and Fareham have now taken maximum points out of all five of their league fixtures and are joint league leaders with Petersfield. It was a tough day for us as a newly promoted side and we now know the standards we need to reach if we are going to be competitive in this league.