NUMBER eight Ben Warren was the four-try hero for Ellingham & Ringwood in their 41-13 Hampshire Cup quarter-final win over local rivals Fordingbridge.

There were, however, points in the game where it looked like the visitors, who are a division below the hosts, may cause an upset.

Ellingham came out with all guns blazing in the first 15 minutes and took a 17-0 lead with two tries from Warren.

Lock-forward Charlie Levey added another with a conversion from fly-half Charlie Cockram.

A scuffle at a ruck then saw the home side’s influential centre Andy Turner being given a straight red card, which resulted in a radical change to the game.

Fordingbridge came back with a try from their captain James Greenwood, which was converted by Matt Norton.

Cockram was then penalised for being off side and was given a yellow card.

Fordingbridge pressed home their advantage against the 13-man home side and Matt Norton kicked two penalties to close the gap to 17-13 at half time.

After the break, Cockram returned to the pitch and despite being a man down, the home side started to dominate the game.

Man-of-the-match Warren (pictured above) scored a further two tries to increase his tally to four for the game and further tries were scored by the Ellingham hooker Joe Tarrant and their captain Duncan Soden.

Their veteran fly-half Andy Weeks, who had replaced the injured Cockram, also kicked two conversions to give the home side a convincing 41-13 victory.

Es manager Steve Anderson, in his last season at the helm, said: “I was very impressed by the way we played today in very difficult cold and wet conditions.

“There was a stage when we were down to 13 players that we could have buckled, but we battled through this and eventually won quite comfortably.

“We’re now looking forward to what will be a very tough semi-final against the Southampton Medics.”