National 3SE: Wimbledon 57 Eton Manor 0

Ilford Recorder: Action from Eton Manor's latest National Three South East clash at Wimbledon (pic: Robert Bagshaw)Action from Eton Manor's latest National Three South East clash at Wimbledon (pic: Robert Bagshaw) (Image: Archant)

Eton Manor had their losing streak extended to 20 matches in emphatic fashion at Wimbledon, as they were comprehensively beaten once again.

The home side were on an eight-game run of defeats themselves, but showed their desire to end that sequence early on with tries from Alexander Kane and Rhys Morgan inside 10 minutes putting them 12-0 up.

Manor, who claimed one of their four losing bonus points in a 12-10 defeat at the New Wilderness when the sides met in November, held their own for a 20-minute spell, before Joshua Bayford took full advantage of a fantastic counter-attack by Wimbledon to touch down.

And although the wet and blustery conditions made it tough for both team, Wimbledon were not held back and shortly before half time the south-west London side got in again, Noah Jarvis this time touching down to secure a bonus point and make it 24-0 at the break.

Wimbledon capitalised on their solid first-half display by scoring a try just a minute into the second half, a second score for winger Kane, and twisted the knife soon after as James Hunt also went over.

Despite the daunting scoreline Manor battled on and had a much better second half, but just as they were starting to take control of possession, Bayford went under the posts for his second try for the hosts.

And as Manor, who had two players sin-binned, kept pushing for consolation scores and got close to the line late on they were hit on the break twice more in the dying minutes of the game as prop James Gillespie touched down and Geary Hewitt also went over to complete a resounding victory for Wimbledon.

A disappointed Manor head coach Jamie Connors admitted: “It felt like we kind of gave up after the first few tries which isn’t something I’ve seen from this group before.

“Its pretty tough to pinpoint it. I think generally all 18 of us didn’t bring what you would normally expect at this level and individually once you tot that up between 18 guys it makes for a poor team performance.

“It was obviously pretty tough, we were on the end of a pretty bad hiding. It isn’t nice and I think we struggled on all facets of our game really. All credit to Wimbledon, they took it to us and took us apart up front and scored some pretty nice tries at the back.”

“It was pretty disappointing for us on all fronts as it was a game that we felt coming into it was certainly one where we could compete and potentially look to take some points.

“But certainly even after five minutes it was pretty clear that we weren’t quite at the races, so yeah it was a tough day at the office.”

Manor now have a free weekend before returning to home turf to welcome Bracknell on March 5.

Eton Manor: Damian Horton, Alex Clark, Jonathan Kopra, Rory Moore, John Robinson, Barnaby Newbury, Jack Sullivan, Nick Cooper-Hicks, Elliott Brown, Nick Horton, Luigi Martelletti, Alex Hunter, Pete Bicknell, Thomas Bateman, Max Murray. Replacements: George Cosma, Daniel Cootes, Reece Reed.