Manor travelled to bottom club Rochford this week on the back of an excellent display last week against Beaconsfield and eventually triumphed 27-16 in a closely-fought encounter.

Rochford were soon under pressure when Nick Horton’s clever kick set up Alex Hunter whose try was disallowed due to a knock-on.

Unperturbed, Manor’s next attack saw Chris Jones eluding would-be tacklers to go over the try line for an excellent individual score. The difficult conversion was missed but after six minutes Manor led 5-0.

Rochford enjoyed a concerted spell of pressure but Manor responded well with forwards Tryson Goodchild and Dan Johnson eventually catching Rochford offside giving Ben Thomas an easy three points to increase Manors lead to 8-0 on 23 minutes.

The visitors could have increased their advantage before Rochford cleverly chipped in behind Manor’s line and the home team won the footrace to the ball to score their first try of the game. They missed the conversion and Manor held a slender, and by no means secure, 8-5 lead going into the break.

Manor kicked off the second half and immediately put Rochford under pressure with Jones kicking excellently for Reed to chase the ball and the full back gathered and broke through several weak tackles, sprinting in from 30 metres out under the posts for Manor’s second try.

With Thomas adding the extras, Manor had extended their lead to 15-5 and looked in control of the game.

Thomas missed a difficult penalty and, spurred on, the home side attacked and Horton was penalised for not releasing the ball.

The referee yellow-carded Ian Edwards for slowing the penalty down, reducing Manor to 13 men before Rochford brought the score to 15-8 with 25 minutes still to play.

Indiscipline continued to undermine Manor's ambitions as Callum McKie was then shown a second yellow card and from the resulting penalty Rochford added another three points bringing the score to 15-11.

Despite playing the remaining 15 minutes of the game with 14 players, Manor scored their third try of the game with Jones’ skilful run and touchdown taking the score to a more comfortable 20-11 lead. Victory was all but assured though when winger Huw Levis speeded away for the bonus try and Thomas converted.

Rochford replied with a try of their own to make the score 27-16 and a late home effort was repelled when Max Murray made an excellent covering tackle just as the referee called time on the game.

Manor will look to further their promotion ambitions this weekend when they take on Diss.