Romsey Hockey Club’s men’s first XI beat Gosport 6-2 to win the Hampshire Trophy at Chapel Gate last weekend.

The game was played at a high pace and was characterised by Romsey’s lightning fast counter attacking style, which in the end was too much for a tough, uncompromising Gosport side.

As has become their habit in this competition, Romsey conceded the opening goal.

Gosport forced a long corner into the D and a wrong-footed Dave Edwards could only deflect the ball to the Gosport forward at the left hand post, who made no mistake. But Romsey were soon level.

Danny Miles forced the ball onto a Gosport foot to win a penalty corner, from which Jack Forest Charde followed up his initial strike, which was well saved, to flick in the rebound.

Almost immediately Forest Charde made it two, profiting from another penalty corner to crash his drag flick onto the backboard.

Gosport were rattled by the rapid reversal of fortune and began to lose their composure.

Umpires Paul Howarth and Simon Watkins were forced to show a number of green cards for careless tackles.

This culminated with a crude trip on Forest Charde close the edge of the D, with the guilty party sin-binned for talking back to the referee.

To add to Gosport’s woes, Forest Charde converted the resulting penalty corner with a bullet flick down the middle.

Almost immediately Romsey extended their lead to 4-1, after a penalty corner routine went awry.

Forest Charde hastily improvised to beat the onrushing defence before feeding a reverse pass to Ben Mullan at the right hand post who neatly converted.

Romsey added another to their tally when a typically incisive move initiated by Tom Ponsford with a delightfully disguised pass released Tom McCarthy to fly down the left. he picked out Ben Mullan high on the right of the D who smashed a pile driver of a shot past the stranded Gosport keeper.

Danny Miles and Ben Mullan drew fantastic saves from Gosport’s keeper before the south coast side claimed another consolation.

But the day belonged to Romsey and they killed the game off with a well worked goal.

Captain Dave Miles won the ball in his own D and fed Forest Charde, who launched a howitzer aerial which was beautifully controlled by McCarthy under pressure from two defenders and squared to Lewis Birch who showed great composure to finish clinically to seal his side’s first knockout cup success.