Paulsgrove shown three red cards in high-scoring Hampshire Premier League defeat against Denmead

Two of the dismissals were very late on as Grove suffered a 4-3 Senior Division defeat at Front Lawn.

Defender Craig Hardy, just back from a spell playing in the Wessex Premier with Moneyfields, was the first to go.

Denmead were already leading through a Kieran Hammond goal when Hardy was shown a straight red midway through the first half.

He was adjudged to have fouled Lewis Crook and, as the last man, was deemed to be denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity.

A flurry of goals saw Denmead lead 4-2 at the interval, with Hammond grabbing his second either side of a Ryan Chandler brace.

Grove struck the only goal of the second half before they were handed two more red cards late on - one of them shown to defender Mike Mallory.

Sammy Kessack and Charlie Moore netted for Grove, though Denmead were unhappy at the first goal - claiming keeper Chris Clark had the ball in his hands before it was knocked out of his grasp.

Denmead aim for revenge next weekend when they travel to Colden Common in the quarter-finals of the Hampshire FA Trophy.

Common pipped them to the HPL title last season by just a point, while they have also beaten Denmead twice already this term.

An early Aaron Blaxall goal was enough to give Common a HPL League Cup victory in September. And the same player scored the only goal again in a league fixture at Front Lawn in late October.

Common’s 6-0 rout of QK Southampton at the weekend took them to within three points of leaders Andover New Street Swifts, with two games in hand.

In a highly congested table, the top seven teams are separated by only six points. Some clubs, though, have played more games than others - Harvest having played 18 and Common and Locks Heath, for example, five fewer.