Ellingham & Ringwood 1st XV travelled up to Guildford for the second league fixture of 2026 and welcomed back captain and scrum half Sammy Veneroso to the fold following a spell out with injury after the Bournemouth game. Typically on match days when Ellingham have had to travel a fair distance for their fixture it can take ten minutes to blow the cobwebs away from the long journey and get into the game. Untypically Ellingham sprang into action in the first minute of the game following some good work from the forwards the ball was spun out to right winger Zach Morrish (who was awarded man of the match by Guildford) who danced around several players evading tackles with great speed and then able to offload to centre Dan Gollings to score the first try of the game, unfortunately Chris Frost the left winger could not slot the conversion.

In the fifth minute hero became villain with Morrish running out of the twenty two, he threw a long pass that was intercepted and the Guildford player was able to run clear and dive over the line under the posts to allow an easy kick at goal to make the score 7-5 to the home team. Guildford then started to apply the pressure and their forwards tested Ellingham's defence and from a driving maul their hooker Ross Broker smashed his way over the line to extend his teams lead in the 27th minute. Then with Ellingham feeling generous in the 31st minute they provided their opposition with another loose pass which their centre Tyler Pickford who was awarded man of the match snaffled up to score the first of his brace of tries. He only had to wait another five minutes when he collected his second try of the half to earn his team a try bonus point and a lead of 26 - 5 at half time.

Guildford attacked in the first two minutes of the second half to extend their lead to 31 points and leaving the visitors looking dejected and wondering what they needed to do to try and turn this game around, this they did but not until beyond the 60th minute. Until then they had to sustain a lot of pressure from the home team until the 64th minute with the home team reduced to 14 men defence coach and centre Adam "I don't want to be on the mini-bus with my Dad" Higgins ran clear of the defence to collect the grubber kick from his captain Sammy Veneroso to dive over the line. Frost as he mentioned at the end of the game achieved a 100% failure with his conversions this afternoon not landing one of them.

Ellingham were striving to get something out of the game and on the 76th minute flanker Dean Smith was rewarded following a powerful driving maul was their to finish off the hard work and give Ellingham their third try of the game. With the light fading and time running out Ellingham forwards continued to apply pressure and worked the ball out to Chris Pablo Frost to score a fourth and bonus point try in the 79th minute to make the final score making up for a bad day at the office with his kicking, Guildford 31 - Ellingham & Ringwood 20.

I would like to extend our thanks to the warmth and generosity Rocky the president of Guildford Rugby Club and those involved in what is a proper grass roots club to myself, the players, coaches and supporters who visited it was very welcomed. This has given Ellingham & Ringwood some hope as they collected their fourth point of the season and with players coming back from injury is the mission impossible to stay in this league still on, time will tell.

Regards
Swede