Esher can secure promotion to National League One with a win over Blackheath on Saturday.

A thrilling, hard-fought 34-29 victory at Nuneaton last Saturday left them five points short of guaranteed promotion and only eight away from clinching the Division Two title.

Esher gave debuts to Ruben Aiono at inside centre, Richard Thorpe at open side flanker and a first start at scrum-half to Ian Barnes. On the bench they bought in Ed Rosa as replacement hooker for his first call up to the 1st XV squad.

Nuneaton took an early 7-0 lead with a Jody Peacock try and Gareth Cull conversion.

Neil Hallett reduced the arrears with a penalty, only for Cull to slot two over at the other end to make it 13-3.

Esher had some luck when Aiono caught a stray pass and sprinted unchallenged to score under the posts. Hallett converted and Esher were back in the game at 13-10, but two more penalties from Cull made it 19-10 at the interval.

The second of these penalties was for a head butt by Emmanuel Amapakabo, which brought him a yellow card.

Despite being down to 14 men for the opening of the second half, Esher began with a try after only one minute from hooker Simon Goldsmith, with Hallett converting.

Nuneaton struck back within five minutes through a touch down by Peacock, which Cull converted, to extend their lead to nine points.

Hallett was also in fine kicking form, landing a penalty and converting tries by Ladislav Vondrasek and Richard Briggs.

Esher now led 34-26, leaving time only for Cull to score a consolation penalty.