Birmingham stay in touch with Hartpury

Even at this early stage of the season, we are seeing the top two sides starting to distance themselves away from the rest of the division as the unbeaten records of Hartpury College and Birmingham Moseley remained intact.

Second placed Birmingham Moseley had to come from behind to beat Blaydon in Round Four to stay on the coattails of Hartpury who were yet again able to pick up maximum points from their fixture.

Blaydon remain in the bottom three alongside Rosslyn Park and Fylde who are still winless heading into October.

Elsewhere, Blackheath’s fine run of form continued with a win against Coventry while Darlington Mowden, Ampthill & District, Plymouth Albion and Hull Ionians were all victorious.

Hartpury College 57-14 Fylde

Hartpury College romped to a comfortable victory over winless Fylde to maintain their 100 per cent start to the season in National One.

College ran in nine tries to stay clear at the top of the table as they claimed their fourth bonus-point win in a row.

Mike Wilcox scored a brace while Sebastian Negri, Harry Cochrane, James Stephenson, Harry Randall, Luke Eves, Steve Leonard, and Jason Dancer also crossed.

Hartpury were 52-0 up before Fylde scored their first try of the afternoon through Scott Rawlings and he grabbed his sides second late on as College continued their explosive start to this campaign.

Birmingham Moseley 41-13 Blaydon

Birmingham Moseley continued their unbeaten start to the season as they came from behind to cruise to victory against Bladyon.

Moseley, are in National One following relegation from the Championship last season, could only manage a penalty in the first-half through Dave Blazier as Blaydon carried a 13-3 lead into the break thanks to drop goal, penalty and Dan Marshall’s converted try.

However, that lead was wiped out after the restart as Jacques Le Roux and Harry Hone both scored braces while Greg King and Tim Molenaar also crossed to make it four wins from four for Kevin Maggs’ side.

Darlington Mowden Park 37-12 Cambridge

Darlington Mowden Park made it three wins on the spin as a superb first half performance helped them to victory over Cambridge.

A Cambridge error allowed Darlington Mowden Park to take an early lead through Caolan Ryan before Rory Duff and Joel Gill went over.

Ryan added two conversions which meant DMP led 19-0 at half-time and it took them just moments after the interval to extend their advantage.

Ben Frankland scored Darlington’s fourth try before Cambridge’s afternoon went from bad to worse as Matt Meek was shown a yellow card.

DMP continued to be ruthless as Will Murray grabbed try number five and although Cambridge cut the gap through Michael Ayrton, Darlington added another penalty to their total.

Meek then had the final word of the afternoon as he dotted down for Cambridge’s second, but the day belonged to DMP who are now up to third in the standings.

Old Albanian 18-13 Rosslyn Park

Jimmy Spiers’ second-half try helped the Old Albanian overcome Rosslyn Park despite being down to 13 men in the first period of this contest.

Rosslyn Park led 10-5 at the break, all 10 points for Park coming from Harry Leonard, in a half which the visitors dominated after two OA’s players were sinbinned.

However, the fact Park were unable to take full advantage of this would prove costly as Chris Lombaard grabbed the OA’s try on the stroke of half-time to give his side a way back into this contest.

A penalty from Chris May and Spiers’ try edged the OA’s ahead after the break.

In response, Leonard kicked Park’s only second-half points as the OA’s managed to seal the win thanks to May’s second penalty of the afternoon.

Blackheath 42-5 Coventry

Blackheath secured their third win in a row as they produced a dominant display to complete a bonus-point victory over Coventry.

Chris Knight’s early try for Club produced a response from Coventry as Darrell Dyer crossed, but Knight’s second score and a penalty from Leo Fielding gave Blackheath a 15-5 half-time lead.

And the hosts stepped up a gear in the second half, running in four unanswered tries to secure a convincing win.

Dan George crossed twice, while Geoff Griffiths and Fielding also added tries for Blackheath.

Loughborough Students 27-39 Ampthill and District

Ampthill and District bounced back from their defeat last weekend to Darlington Mowden Park as they clinched victory on the road against Loughborough Students.

Ampthill dominated the opening period, with tries from Maama Molitika (2), Vili Ma’asi and Sam Hanks, plus two conversions and a penalty from Stef Jones giving them a 27-10 lead.

Jones slotted over another penalty after the break before Harry Nuttall added to Matt Macpherson’s first half touchdown for Loughborough to make the score 37-17.

Sam Baker dived over for Ampthill’s fifth try of the day on 68 minutes, but Loughborough kept on battling and were rewarded for their endeavour as late scores from Yiannis Loizias and Josh Sharp earned them a bonus point.

Esher 19-21 Plymouth Albion

Plymouth Albion secured a tense victory over Esher to leave the Surrey side with just one win from their opening four matches of the season.

Plymouth Albion player/coach Kieran Hallett put the visitors ahead thanks to two early penalties before Herbie Stupple bundled over in the corner for Albion’s first try.

Hallet added a further penalty before Esher got their first score of the afternoon after lovely combination play between their back three as Albion went into the break 16-5 up.

Tom Cowen-Dickie extended Plymouth’s lead after the restart as he dotted down from close range, but Esher were given a route back into this match when Harry Shepard was yellow-carded.

Esher took advantage to grab their second try of the day and were then presented with a chance to claim their third score when Rupert Freestone was sin-binned soon after Shepard’s return.

Once again Esher, didn’t pass up the opportunity and reduced Plymouth’s lead to two points, but Dan Parks’ men held out for the win.

Macclesfield 19-29 Hull Ionians

Hull Ionians clinched their second win of the season with this bonus-point victory over newly-promoted Macclesfield at Priory Park.

Macclesfield did take the lead through Sam Broster, but Edward Falkingham’s try made the scores level.

The visitors then exploded into life after half-time as they led 26-5 by the hour mark. Will Foden’s score came four minutes into the second period before Matt King’s yellow-card allowed the I’s to press home their advantage as Sam Slingsby and Dan Tei Sen crossed for the bonus-point.

Hull Ionians were then were made to work for their victory as Tom Mantell and then King dived over for Macc heading into the final 10 minutes, but a Tom Millar penalty saw the I’s head back to Brantingham Park with all five points.