ELLINGHAM and Ringwood awarded a home walkover against Andover’s 2nd XV in Hampshire Division One last weekend

Andover withdrew an hour before kick-off from their fixture against Ellingham and Ringwood’s 1st XV on Saturday. This was incredibly frustrating for the New Forest side, but they were awarded a bonus point win, which meant they moved up to third place.

Ellingham and Ringwood’s 2nd XV moved up to second place in Dorset and Wiltshire Division 2 (South), with an impressive 63-5 victory over top placed Dorchester at the Raymond Brown Memorial Ground on Saturday.

The game was played in excellent spirit with Ellingham and Ringwood moving the ball quickly for the backs to hit hard lines and break through the Dorchester defence.

Alex Cridland opened the scoring when he finished a well worked move, with the forwards carrying hard in the midfield letting fly half Josh Butcher release Cridland to cut through the defence.

The second try started deep in Ellingham’s half with the ball being moved quickly to winger Brad Evans who made a good break before offloading to Jonny Joiner who raced through to score.

Ellingham were in complete control of the game with the forwards continuing to break the gainline and the backs attacking at will. Josh Butcher added to the score with a wind assisted penalty from inside own half.

Brad Evans then completed a hat-trick finishing off flowing moves after the forwards set up platforms to attack from.

Dominic Pitt scored a trade mark try coming into the line from full back and Dean Young came off the bench to score two well taken tries, with the pick of them when he collected the ball on the wing, beat a defender, kicked ahead and outpaced the chasing defence to collect his own kick and score under the posts. Other tries came from Tim Linford and Matt Moore, with Butcher adding five conversions.

Ellingham and Ringwood’s 3rd XV put in a determined performance against a strong New Milton 3rd XV to win a well-deserved away bonus point in a 41-22 loss.

Their tries came from Josh Berry, Will Jenkins, Charlie Karelus and Josh Rowntree. Will Jenkins also kicked a conversion.