Ellingham and Ringwood 77 - Bournemouth II 13

There was a big crowd in the Spring sunshine at the Raymond Brown Memorial Ground on Saturday for our Hampshire Counties Division 1 fixture against Bournemouth, helped by the fact that we'd held our annual lunch for Honorary Life Members and Vice Presidents before the kick off.

Our coach Alan Steel spoke to his team before the game about trying to keep their penalty count down, but unfortunately the message did not sink in, and we gave away three penalties in the first two minutes. This allowed the Bournemouth fly half George Yarwood to kick a penalty and give the visitors an early lead. This spurred us into action and after some free-flowing rugby, our outside centre Ben Carey dived over for the first try of the game and our right wing Chris Frost kicked the conversion. Four minutes later, after similar free-flowing rugby, our left winger Jack Kelly dived over in the other corner and once again Frost was successful with the conversion. Our inside centre Chris Seaby then joined in the fun and crashed over for our third try of the game, but on this occasion Frost's conversion attempt was wide of the post. Once again ill discipline let us down and Yarwood was able to kick another penalty to reduce the deficit. On the 24th minute our captain and and scrum half Sammy Veneroso secured a try bonus point when he darted over for our fourth try and again, Chris Frost was able to kick the conversion.

Bournemouth were struggling at this point, but they showed great endeavour and managed to score their only try of the game after a succession of rucks close to our try line and Yarwood was able to kick the conversion. Our forwards then got in on the action and our number 8 Stuart Pearce muscled his way through a couple of tackles to score a try under the posts, which Frost converted. In the 36th minute the elusive Sammy Veneroso took matters into his own hands and dived over for our last try of the first half, giving us a 44-13 lead at the break.

In the second half we were attacking the club house end of the pitch, where most of our supporters had gathered and they treated were to a continuation of the first half try spectacle. Our second row James Fisher opened the second half scoring when he secured the ball up on the five metre line and crashed over the try line for the home team's seventh try of the game. Chris Frost again added the conversion with a wonderful kick from close to the touch line. In the 48th minute our vice-captain Andrew Lorton, who was partnering Fisher in the second row, dived over for another try which Frost, who was having a fine game with the boot, converted.

At this point, our head coach Alan Steel made some changes, bringing on Dan Stewart at full back to replace Chris Jeffes, and Tyler Grant to replace Stuart Pearce. These alterations provided immediate success with first of all Stewart running from deep to glide through for a try, followed shortly afterwards by Grant bulldozing his way over to get another try in the 54th minute and Frost was able to kick one of the two conversions. Steel then brought on Ali Bennett, who was coming back from injury to replace Harry Wescott at fly half - and Bennett was soon able to score our eleventh try. This was followed two minutes later by a second try from outside centre Ben Carey, which was the final score of the game.

This victory moves us up into sixth place in the league, just two points behind Portsmouth, who we face in our final home league fixture of the season in two weeks time.