Ellingham and Ringwood 12 – Gosport and Fareham 61

We welcomed high flying Gosport & Fareham on a bitterly cold day with a strong wind that would prove both useful and problematic for both teams. We got off to a blistering start when full back Will Jenkins intercepted a pass and ran from deep inside his own half to score in the corner, but unfortunately Chris Frost playing on the wing, could not convert for the extra points. The visitors fought back kicking a penalty, followed quickly by an unconverted try. Ill-discipline let us down and the visitors scored another unconverted try. We fought back and following some good work by the forwards, Will Jenkins went over for his second try of the game, which this time Chris Frost converted to reduce the deficit. Crucially we didn't make effective use of the wind in the first half to turn our opponents around and put them on the back foot and Gosport and Fareham on the stroke of half time scored a converted try to make the half time score 12-25.

In the second half the visitors used the wind to their full advantage and ran in four more tries, three of which were converted as well as a penalty. We didn't make life easy for ourselves again through ill-discipline and a yellow card. We knew it was going to be a tough day and so it proved to be, with the final score 12-61.