The New Wilderness club lost their second consecutive match in the division, but were only 17-7 down at half time

Jamie Connors admitted his Eton Manor team were not too disheartened after their 51-7 loss away to London One North leaders Rochford Hundred on Saturday.

The newly promoted Hundred have taken to the top flight like a duck to water and prior to the weekend clash had won 10 out of 10 matches.

Rochford made it 11 out of 11, but the final score didn’t do Manor justice, who were only trailing 17-7 at half time.

Connors said: “They are top of the league for a reason and a good side, but I thought the score flattered them in the end.

“It was a lot closer with 10 minutes to go, but we ran out of steam and it was a game where we came off the pitch and the boys were actually happy with the performance, which is a bit unusual when you get beat by nearly 50 points.

“We certainly felt we had played well and a lot better than the performance we put in against Old Priorians the weekend before.”

After Manor’s shock loss 34-27 to Old Priorians on November 17, it was important they put in a strong showing against runaway leaders Rochford.

Head coach Connors certainly felt they did and at the interval Rhys Davis-Horne’s converted try by Jake Emerson meant the visitors only trailed the hosts by 10 points.

In-form Hundred managed to grab more tries after the break though, and Manor were left to reflect on what could have been.

“It was 17-7 at half time and we probably left a couple of tries out there because we had a lot of dominance in the first half,” Connors said.

“We won a lot of penalties and our line-out really let us down. We had four or five penalties and kicked them into touch near the corner, but we would then lose the line-out, so that was pretty disappointing to miss those opportunities.

“I think it was 30-7 with 10 minutes to go and I thought that was a reasonable score, but they grabbed a few at the end which blew the score up.”