Ellingham & Ringwood 1st XV travelled to Bognor taking a coach to ease the burden of the long travel and to try and win their fifth game in a row in Counties 1 Hampshire League. Storm Bert had well and truly hit Bognor by the time the players stepped out onto a wet and windy pitch to do battle. Ellingham playing with a strong wind behind them in the first half applied early pressure to the home team's defence, but the tricky conditions were not going to make the game easy and in the first twenty minutes of play there were several knock-ons resulting in scrums for both sides. The opening quarter was attritional and neither side could make a breakthrough, that was until the 24th minute when centre Danny Patrice broke through a couple of tackles and sped towards the line to dive over and give Ellingham the lead. Chris Frost returning to full-back was able to slot the ball through the uprights for an additional two points.

Ten minutes later after sterling work from the forwards hooker Pat Fraser bullied his way over the line through the home team's defence to extend Ellingham's lead, this was increased further by Chris Frost with a difficult kick in tricky conditions from out wide he steered the ball through the uprights. There was no further score in the first half, which made the score at the break Bognor 0 - Ellingham & Ringwood 14.

In the second half changes were made with Ted Johnson coming onto the pitch to replace flanker Chris Hancock and Harry Westcott taking over from Man Of The Match player Danny Patrice in the centres. The wind and rain continued to play it's part in the game, despite both teams trying to play as much free flowing rugby as the conditions would allow. In the 70th minute following some good build up work from the Ellingham pack, captain and scrum half Sammy Veneroso muscled and darted his way over the line to extend the visitors lead. This time Frost was unable to convert mostly due to having to kick into a strong wind that even the seagulls above were struggling to contend with.

Ellingham strived to get the fourth try and bonus point, but credit to Bognor's defence they held up hooker Pat Fraser on the line and they also put a lot of pressure on the visitors try line, but could not quite breach it and for the first time this season they did not score in a league game. The result moved Ellingham into 3rd place in the league and a happy coach trip home.

Cheers
Swede