Ellingham and Ringwood 36 - Gosport and Fareham 36

We welcomed Gosport and Fareham to the Raymond Brown Memorial Ground in our Hampshire Counties Division 1 fixture on Saturday, in the hope we could provide the visitors with a sterner test than when we travelled to Gosport in October.

Unfortunately we did not get off to a good start with the visitors dominating the first 15 minutes of the game. This resulted in Gosport taking an early ten point lead with their second row Jonny Stoppard crashing for their first try. He was to repeat this five minutes later to score their second try, but luckily for us, both conversion attempts sailed wide of the uprights.

This spurred us into action and after some good build up play from our forwards, the ball was spun out wide, initially by our captain and scrum half Sammy Veneroso. It eventually got to our wing three-quarter Jack Kelly who dived over for a well earned try. His fellow winger Chris Frost was able to kick the conversion to reduce the deficit to just three points. Shortly afterwards there was a repeat of our first try with Jack Kelly scoring his second try of the game. Chris Frost's trusty right boot kicked the conversion to give us the lead for the first time in the game. This was to be short lived, as we decided to play the ball out from deep and we gave away an intercepted try which Tim Snowden, the visitors hooker, took and dived over under the posts for a try that was duly converted.

We fought back and man of the match flanker Ted Johnson, after sustained pressure from our forwards, barged his way over the line. Frost was again able to kick the conversion to regain the lead. As the first half was coming to a close we scored the try of the half when our centre Chris Seaby darted over the line to increase our lead, but this time Frost was unable to kick the conversion with the ball sailing just past the upright and this was to eventually prove crucial. We led 26-17 at the break and our coach Alan Steel had to make a change at half time with injured prop Tom Sampson being replaced by Corben Hills.

The visitors got off to a good start in the second period with their centre Dominic Holling scoring the first of his two second half tries, but he was unable to kick the conversion. Gosport then got their second intercepted try of the game, with Dominic Holling getting his second try which he was able to convert. This spurred us back into action and our hooker Pat Fraser muscled his way over to get our fifth try. Sadly, with the wind against him, Frost was unable to kick the conversion from out wide. We extended our lead when our centre Chris Seaby got his second try of the game with another well worked move, but again Frost was unable to kick the conversion. The visitors stepped up and their lock forward Brad Thomas, back at the club he left in the summer, scored a try from close quarters, despite some strong defence work by us and Holling was able to kick the conversion. The game was fiercely contested and the visitors were not going to go down easily. Their number eight Simon Trivett scored the last try of the game, which Holling was able to convert, to level the scores at 36 a piece.

We strove hard to try and clinch victory in the dying minutes, putting the visitors defence under immense pressure, but Gosport and Fareham's defence held strong for the draw, but this meant we remain unbeaten in 2024.