Title-chasing Sandown & Shanklin can count themselves lucky not to have lost ground of Hampshire Division One leaders Trojans after eking out a slender 15-14 win over lowly Nomads.

While the facts of the contest show that the Islanders were comfortably positioned early in the second half at 15-0 ahead, had it not been for an off-day with the boot from Nomads' James Hardy, they would certainly not have had it their own way.

The home side were more than a match for the injury and unavailability crippled Hurricanes after conceding a try mid-way through the first half but they could not turn their pressure into points with Hardy's two penalty attempts missing the target.

Sandown replied with a penalty just before the break and, while the hosts were down to 14 men, used the space on the wing to run under the posts to score when play restarted.

But Nomads came back strongly and Hardy made amends for his early faux pas by sprinting in for a well taken score and, in injury time Lee Tindal took the ball from Sandown's 22 and drove through to bring the arrears back to a single point.

Those earlier misses and the insistence of trying for the try following a penalty in front of the posts were ultimately to cost Nomads and let Sandown off the hook, and they joined watching Trojans coach Pete Surtees' side on 20 points at the summit of the table.

Sandown captain Lee Priddle was a relieved man to have claimed the points on what he described as a "bad, bad day" for his side, minus some eight first team players and a whole chunk from number eight to inside centre.

"We were really struggling and when five guys missed the ferry as well, it didn't help," he said.

"With this supposed to be a league week off, a lot of our players were away working or at a club wedding. So we called a 53-year-old into the front row to help us out.

"That was the kind of day we had. And the game wasn't much better with Nomads slowing us down."

Priddle was fully aware of the prying eyes of the league leaders from the sidelines but he confessed: "They would not have learned much about us today."

In National Division Three, Havant showed their full character by annihilating Old Patesians 41-10 to maintain the grip on sixth place in the table.

It was the perfect response after the poor performance of the previous weekend at Hertford and could have been even better had Steve Claffey posted five of the conversions to the six tries they scored.

And with lynchpin player-coach Owen Cobbe back pulling the strings, it made all the difference.

A close first half-hour, where the visitors capitalised on a Havant error to shut the gap down to three points was as narrow as the margin became as the home side stepped on the gas , especially in the second half.

Peppering the Gloucester-based sides line, Havant ran in four tries - including a debut score for former Melrose skipper Bruce Ruthven - to record their biggest win of the season.

Director of Rugby Adam King, who questioned his side after their Hertford debacle, was definitely more heartened by their performance and looked back to two years ago, where similarly sticky pitch conditions condemned them to relegation.

"It was ground conditions like that that ultimately caused us to get stuck in the relegation zone," he said. "So I am particularly pleased how well everyone did today.

"But we now must show this kind of passion on our travels, starting next week when we go to promotion-chasing Lydney."