Eastleigh under-13s 20 Petersfield under-13s 40: PETERSFIELD’S under-13s travelled to a very cold Eastleigh on Sunday for their Hampshire Plate semi final as underdogs, and a tough test was made harder as Field were depleted by injury.

Field came out of the blocks quickly with winger Needham Laing running in what was to be the first of a hat-trick of tries.

Eastleigh replied through their fly half who put a cheeky kick towards the try line and followed up to score, a trick he repeated again to put the home side ahead.

The two sides continued to swap scores. Blackman and Botham both went on storming runs through the middle and left the defence in their wake, but Eastleigh had the edge and led 20-15 at half time.

Field only had three substitutes for the game and brought them all on for the second half.

As they had at the start of the match, Field kicked off the second half with good passion and discipline.

Hooker Wilson broke the defence and offloaded to Blackman, whose second try of the game bought the scores level. Field continued to press and Needham Laing ran in his second try.

Some impressive scrummaging, rucking and passing moves were topped off with a barnstorming run from prop West to set Needham Laing up for his third try. The rout was completed by Blackman, who scored two more tries to finish with four tries in total.

The unexpected but well-deserved victory puts Field into the Hampshire Plate final against Andover.