Eastleigh kicked off the New Year with victory at local rivals Trojans as the sides completed a fixture that was abandoned in December.

The original London 3 South-West game was brought to an abrupt end by the referee after just 15 minutes – with Eastleigh leading 5-0 at the time – after the official got accidentally clumped as two players exchanged punches.

Eastleigh went on to win Saturday’s clash which was played in good spirits on a boggy pitch that had endured endless hours of rain.

The match, the only league game in the county and staged at Trojans’ Stoneham Park ground, drew a large crowd despite the wet and windy weather.

The home side missed an early opportunity to take the lead as a penalty kick sailed wide in awful conditions.

They then gave away several penalties at the scrum and a well worked driving maul got Eastleigh over the line with Stu Mason touching down.

Eastleigh doubled their advantage before half time when a perfectly weighted cross-field kick from Phil Baldwin gave Adam Gallagher an easy score on the left wing.

Trojans started the second half with 14 players as prop Marcus Coffin was yellow carded on the whistle. However they held firm and then went over the line from a rare backs’ move, winger Jake Bailey scoring in the corner.

The fierce rivals battled for 30 minutes but it was Eastleigh who looked more likely to score again, and they did just that in the last ten minutes. Rich O'Donnell took a quick tap-and-go to dive over the try line for a 15-5 victory.

Eastleigh skipper Paul Fudio said: “I felt a little bit sorry for the people watching because it was not the most attractive rugby because the conditions did not allow it and the pitch was very boggy.

“We made it a forwards’ battle and stifled their game – I think they wanted a quicker game we utilised our forwards and the game plan really worked well.

“The game was played fairly and seemed in good spirits. I get on well a lot of their players because I played college rugby and school rugby with them. What happened in the first encounter I think was blown out of proportion.”

Camberley are run-away leaders of SW3 at the halfway stage but Eastleigh’s victory puts them just six points behind second-placed Battersea Ironsides and back in the promotion picture.

Fudio added: “Things are going well as it is Phil’s (head coach Phil Osman) first season with us. The thing we need to work on is consistency. We seem to beat teams at the top of the table and then lose to ones at the bottom so that’s the thing to concentrate on in second half of the season, consistency.”