London League Division 3 South-West - Weybridge Vandals 31, Winchester 38

PLAYING with considerable heart and aggression, Winchester notched up their first away league win of the season at Brownacres last Saturday.

It was a win far more emphatic than the score suggests and one that puts the club's destiny firmly in its own hands.

If one man typified the visitors' battling qualities, that man was prop Stuart Moreton, who was in the thick of everything. Number eight Derek Manning caught the eye with his ground-eating runs and a brace of tries, but Moreton at the coal face had probably his best game in a Winchester shirt, thoroughly deserving all the plaudits that came his way.

Andy Ashwin gave the visitors an early lead from a penalty before Manning's first try set the tone for the victory march that followed. That was rudely interrupted when prop, Dan Chapman, bundled his way over for Vandals, but after that the traffic was one-way again.

James Bingham helped himself and Manning stretched the Winchester lead to 18-5. For a while the game turned into the Derek Manning show, as his silky running set up a tidal wave flowing towards Vandals' line.

Richard Kaye scored the easiest of his many tries in recent weeks and the unusual sight of Richard Cumbers converting put the visitors out of reach by half time, a feeling confirmed when Cumbers did what he does best, poaching a try with the second period, artificially elongated to an hour, in its infancy.

A cheeky Dave Brown drop goal added insult to mounting injury as Winchester showed no mercy. In the prevailing dank and muddy conditions this was rugby fit for a king.

Effervescent winger Simon Farrington poured the cream on the top with a clinical try.

Replacement Darren Livett made the spectators aware there were two teams on the pitch with a consolation Vandals' try converted by Andy Harrison.

It was dusk before the game ended, and a penalty try and further efforts from Coppinger and Steggles meant the final tally was unrealistically close.

Winchester's head coach, Barry Bridgman, was happy, though.

"We played some fantastic rugby at times today," he enthused.

Winchester: Cumbers, Bingham, Kaye (Pillinger 60), Goldsmith, Farrington, Ashwin, Brown, Staszkiewicz, Bolland (Ettinger 70), Moreton, Hayes (Kirkaldy 60), Ettinger (Shewry 55), Daniels, Knight, Manning.

Winchester have no game on Saturday (Jan 14), returning to league action at home to Old Reigatians on January 21 (2.30pm).