Ellingham & Ringwood’s heroes end Guernsey seconds’ two-year unbeaten home streak
Hampshire Counties One
Guernsey RFC II 10
Ellingham & Ringwood RFC 15
ELLINGHAM & Ringwood flew over to Guernsey and handed the second team their first defeat on home soil in two years.
The game was attritional from the outset as both sides vied to try and obtain the upper hand, and it took until the 20th minute for the deadlock to be broken. From a well-worked driving maul, hooker Pat Fraser crashed over the line to score the first try of the game.
The home team responded fast, and quick passing through their back line allowed them to score in the corner before kicking the conversion to take the lead.
Ellingham fought back through Tom Veneroso, who won the man-of-the-match award, and their endeavours were rewarded when the home team gave away a penalty, which Chris Frost duly slotted over in the 30th minute to take the lead by one point.
E&R continued to apply the pressure, and Pat Fraser, who was having a good game, crashed over for his second try to extend the visitors’ lead in the 36th minute. Frost kicked the conversion to make it 15-7.
The second half was even more attritional than the first; the home team were fired up from their half-time talk and fought hard to claw back three points when awarded a penalty to make the score 15-10.
Both teams strived hard to gain the upper hand, with the packs trying to breach the defence of both sides.
Guernsey had a try disallowed when they knocked on as they crossed Ellingham’s try line before Fraser did the same for the visitors a few minutes later despite encouragement from tight head prop Tom Sampson, who shouted that it was going to be a “Pat-trick” moments before the ball was spilt.
Ellingham held on with some sterling defensive work, which Adam Higgins, playing at outside centre and defence guru, would have been proud of.
Ellingham are at home on Saturday when taking on local rivals New Milton at 3pm.
Ellingham & Ringwood: A. Payne, P. Fraser, T. Sampson, G. Randall, C. Scott, C. Hancock, T. Johnson, L. Nicholls, S. Veneroso, T. Veneroso, H. Leigh-Watts, D. Patrice, A. Higgins, C. Seaby, C. Frost. Subs: B. Evans, H. Wescott, S. Pearce.