Eton Manor suffered their first London 1 North defeat of the season after a 45-19 defeat away at North Walsham, who preserved their 100 per cent start to the campaign.

Jack Sullivan, Ollie Waugh and Jake Campey went over for Manor’s tries, with Cameron Dutch and Mike Sage adding conversions respectively for the first two.

Manor had the better of the early exchanges as they looked to maintain their own unbeaten start to the season, but a series of penalties allowed North Walsham to get back into the game and nearly open the scoring, only prevented when Jamie Millais brought his man down.

The visitors regained the upper hand and took the lead after 15 minutes when Sullivan gathered a low ball and drove over the line with four defenders for company. Dutch’s successful conversion made it a seven-point score.

Walsham recovered pretty quickly however, indicative of their position at the top of the table, and soon made the scores level again with a well-worked try from the wing and a successful touchline conversion.

The hosts were now in the ascendency, pinning Manor back into their own half, and it wasn’t long before their resistance was broken again, with the Walsham player going over between the posts for their second converted try of the game.

Table toppers Walsham were beginning to pull away now, and though it wasn’t quite the full haul, their third try of the afternoon was soon forthcoming as the winger won the race to his own kick into the dead ball area and dotted down.

Despite being blown away in that short three-try period, Manor ended the half as strongly as they had started it and made sure they went into the break just five points behind when Waugh broke through the home defence and Sage converted.

An even start to the second half slipped away from Manor when Rhys Davis-Horne was sin binned for a deliberate knock-on, and Walsham took full advantage of the imbalanced numbers, running in two quick tries to extend their lead to 31-14.

They should have further added to their tally when they once again broke through Manor’s back line but the attacker eventually lost control of the ball and knocked it on.

Following that breakdown, the visitors again recovered and started forging attacks of their own, and good powerful runs from Millais and Campey took play further towards Walsham’s 22.

Aaron Lowe gained possession and played it out to Campey once he was stopped, and he went over for a deserved third try of the afternoon, but a missed conversion left the score at 31-19.

With eight minutes to go, the away side sensed an opportunity to at least grab a try-scoring bonus point, but Walsham were desperate to pull away at the top of the table and, as such, pulled away at the end of this match.

Two converted tries in the final minutes added some real gloss to the scoreline for the hosts as they compounded Manor’s lack of clinical play to take the points with a 45-19 win.

Manor remain third in the table despite defeat and can close the gap on second-placed Colchester with a win this Saturday at home to local rivals Chingford.