Hampshire 2: Weeks gives Fawley the boot

The Watersiders lost out to five Andy Weeks penalties, despite dominating the scrums and seeing the line-outs fairly even throughout the contents.

But a few wrong decisions allowed Weeks, who was outstanding at fly-half, to hit Fawley hard with the penalties and some long-ranging kicks behind the defence, ensuring that promotion would be Ellingham's.

As for Fawley, it is a second successive relegation and down to Hampshire 3 for the first time in their history leaving skipper Lee Haisman was desperately disappointed.

"We have not really spoken about it yet but we want to just try and keep the guys together. But what we do know is that those two points we lost early in the season have cost us dearly."

As it turned out, Eastleigh would have missed out on stepping up any way as they sunk to a surprise 18-13 reverse to Ventnor.

The Islanders, fighting for their own survival, wanted the game more than their visitors and despite going behind to two Jim Longhurst penalties when Eastleigh played with the wind at their backs, Ventnor seemed the keener.

The game levelled out shortly after the break when Dave Craddock replied to Ventnor's early score but things took a turn for the worse when Joe Butler was sin-binned and was followed by Steve Shears just a minute after coming on.

However, an off-field incident marred the rest of the game, Eastleigh coach Kevin Byron-Butler commenting "There was no place for this in our game", without going into further detail.

Eastleigh piled on the pressure after the Islanders scored but they held on for their win and safety.

"Well done to Ventnor, I am pleased they are staying in the league," added Byron-Butler, "but I want to draw a line under what happened over there."

Relegated Lytchett Minster had a fine 14-7 victory over Fordingbridge, while Chineham, who finished just above Fawley on points difference, only just fell to runaway league champions Aldershot & Fleet.