The toll of the injury-list has come home to roost for Winchester. Against a side with a similar record to their own, they were crushed 60-3 by London Nigerian and subsequently have slumped to the foot of London One.

After taking a first minute lead through stand-in skipper Andy Ashwin's penalty, they were powerless to stop the Hammersmith-based side from running riot, with former Canterbury number eight Ken Aseme and ex-Bath winger Toci Adebayo to the fore.

Despite playing some dangerous rugby at times, there was nothing in the tank for Mike Marchant's young side. Marchant was not downbeat but knows a result like this can have harrowing symptoms to go with it.

"Well, the only way to go now is up," he said, looking at the league table. "It is up or out for Winchester. I know that my side are good enough to perform, but if we get to the end of the season in a comfortable mid-table position, then we would have done well to do so."

Andover's hopes of stretching away from the wrong end of London Two South were well and truly dumped by winless Wimbledon, who have one now courtesy of a 47-16 victory over Keith Mitchell's depleted outfit.

That victory puts Andover back in the bottom two with Effingham & Leatherhead, who caught an improving Portsmouth on a good day, as they were 51-5 winners over Simon Dear's winless troops.

The match was all over as a contest inside the first ten minutes when the hosts soared into a 21-0 lead and they slowly picked up points thereafter to complete their third win of the season, although it keeps them sixth in London 2.

Coach Ian Chandler was happier that things were returning to normal. "After the last few weeks, we needed to produce a good performance. Last week was better but our win on Saturday was more like the regular Portsmouth performances."

Gosport & Fareham were denied the possible chance of taking over at the top as their opponents, Old Mid-Whitgiftians, called the game off at 11.15am on Saturday morning, complaining of a 'flu epidemic that had hit the club, reducing them to just 13 registered fit men.

However, it is the second time in as many years that the troublesome Surrey club have reneged on their fixture on the peninsular, so the RFU competitions committee may not be so lenient as they were last time around.

Their cancellation allowed Worthing to overtake Gosport into second.