Ellingham and Ringwood 7 - Petersfield 48

We faced our toughest challenge of the season on Saturday with our fixture against runaway league leaders Petersfield in Hampshire Counties Division 1 on a day when a number of our key players were unavailable as a result of injuries.

There was a large crowd watching the game following a pre-match Christmas lunch, but it was Petersfield who flew out of the blocks at the start of the game. They scored three unanswered tries and a conversion in the first 20 minutes to open up a 17-0 lead. Despite this, we stuck to our task and applied considerable pressure, but unfortunately we were unable to get on the scoresheet. Shortly before half time Petersfield kicked a long range penalty to give them a 20-0 lead at the break.

Petersfield were able to score four more converted tries in the second half and our only consolation was a good try from our wing three-quarter Jack Kelly, which was converted by our full back Henry Benson.

We have another difficult challenge next Saturday when we travel to second placed Andover, in what will be our last fixture before the Christmas break.