An outstanding individual display from Romsey's teenage fly-half Graham Noble within the steadfast resolve of his team led the London 4 South-West's bottom side to a superb win over high-flying local rivals Southampton.

The Saints, who were looking at this fixture as a possible springboard to the league leadership, were downed by a heavy weakened Romsey side that were forced to travel with just one replacement having had multiple problems in getting one together at all.

But they showed none of those is dissecting Southamp-ton and Noble, who played cricket for Southern Electric Premier League champions BAT Sports and appeared for Hampshire II during the summer, pulled all the strings.

The one-time King Edward VI School rugby captain ran it two tries and added 13 further points with the boot to lift his side clear of the bottom three for the first time this season, and it was fully deserved, according to Southampton captain Tony Cador.

"They wanted it more than we did," he said of the physically hard encounter. "They outplayed us in every facet of the game."

Southampton did have their problems too, playing most of the second half with just 14 men, having used all their replacements and suffering further injuries to centre Martyn Sheridan and fly-half Ben Sadowski.

Romsey captain Ben Hewitt could barely contain his pleasure at recording such a result, but they took a great amount of emphasis for their performance from the Southampton coach's comments in the match-day programme.

"In as many words, it said they would blow us off the park, having played so well against US Portsmouth the previous week," said clubman Gary Banks. "But, had they not scored in the last ten minutes, the result could have been a lot better in our favour.

"It's a fantastic result and proves we can go on to bigger and better things as a club."

Southampton now find themselves em-broiled in a three-way tie for second place behind run-away leaders Purley John Fisher, who dealt out a meaty hiding to Petersfield 42-8 to move four points clear at the top.

In London 3 South-West, Tottonians very nearly overhauled the points difference gap with the other sides on four points when they mauled lowly Old Blues with an 11-try super show.

After a scratchy first half in which Totts played all the rugby, lacking only in confidence, they eventually ran their visitors ragged.

Centres Chris Smith and Richard Buck both pulled in try braces, as did winger Dave Lamb, while Paul Goodall's boot added 22 points .

Skipper Miles Northover knew his side had it in them as he said: "I knew that elusive victory would come."