Robert Ellis gives it a real good go but is ultimately unable to complete remarkable personal achievement in Gosport & Fareham's rout of Ellingham & Ringwood

Red-hot Ellis had scored hat-tricks in each of Gosport's previous two wins over Sandown & Shanklin and New Milton respectively in the lead up to hosting Ellingham.

It left the Gosport colts graduate in the unique position of possibly completing another treble for the third game running and although it appeared as though he just might manage to complete the feat, he was unable to add to his early try-double against Ellingham.

‘As a whole team, I’m pleased with the way we went about our business on Saturday,’ said Gosport head coach Mark Pollard.

‘He (Rob) got two tries nice and early, for whatever reason, I just don’t think he had another opportunity to get his third try.

‘You know what, another two tries in the bag for him, he played well again so he’s got to be happy with that.

‘They (Ellingham & Ringwood) came and took their points when they could but I think we controlled the game. We went about what we needed to do which was to get another result in the bag and pushed forward.’

Second-placed Gosport would run in eight tries over the course of a largely one-sided victory to leave them nine points behind table-toppers Havant 2nds with three matches left to play this season.

Ellis continued where he'd left off in the previous two outings, getting an early score double to hand the hosts a 17-3 half-time advantage and make it eight scores in his past three appearances on a personal level.

At the break, his hat-trick of hat-tricks was on the cards and with Gosport scoring a further six tries after the restart, surely one of those would be from the man most in form.

But it was Shaun Taylor (two), Joseph Wales, Jimmy Wallis, Robert MacKinnon and Ash Wakefield who went crashing over in the second half as Gosport completed a routine 47-9 - a match in which they did not concede a try themselves.