London 3 Eastern Counties Southwold 55 Newmarket 7 Southwold kept up their perfect start to the season and stayed top of the league with a comprehensive home victory.

The first 20 minutes saw a lot of scrappy play from both teams, Newmarket using the strong wind behind them to gain territory and ‘Wold having a lot of possession but failing to capitalise and unable to break a strong looking Newmarket defence.

At the end of the first quarter however Newmarket had a scrum five metres from their own line and the Wold pack simply pushed them back over their line, with Ben Crick diving down on the ball for what was in the end a simple try and five points on the board. Wold’s second came five minutes later as Patrick Stevens dove right over the maul to touch down for the try which Luke Wade duly converted for a 12-0 lead.

Newmarket then had their best spell in the game and deservedly eventually the visitors scored their only try of the game wide on the right flank.

A great conversion saw them reduce the deficit to five points, but that deficit was to increase again only two minutes later as Joe Block made a strong break to the right in the Newmarket 22, breaking three tackles.

He offloaded to skipper James Hall who simply was not going to be stopped as he dived in for Wold’s third try and Wade’s conversion took the score to 19-7 at half time.

Wold grabbed their bonus point try through Rob Owles, before Matt Howell smashed over and Wade converted for a 31-7 lead. On the stroke of 65 minutes Wold had a scrum wide on the right and the ball was won again easily and fizzed down the back line at speed.

There was Jacob English again to cut inside and make the break to feed Ritchie Thickett for another great try wide on the left. Wade’s great conversion from wide saw the margin increase by another seven points to 38-7.

Wold’s next score came from a scrum, once again the ball flying down the line at speed to Thickett on the wing, who cut back inside and fed James Hall, who in turn fed Dominic Hill to sidestep and bully his way over for 43-7.

Howell and Hill both completed their doubles before full-time as Southwold continued their 100% start.