Old Walcountians moved up to third in Surrey One with a narrow victory over second-placed Old Whitgiftians on Saturday.

Early on, a skilful Whitgiftians side advanced into the home 22 and opened the scoring for the day with a converted try in the seventh minute from a rolling maul following a clean lineout take.

But Walcountians were a resilient side and, as soon as the forwards started to win some ball, began to stretch their local rivals by swinging the ball to their pacy backs.

Even without the services of Ollie Beales and Dan Crompton, Walcountians had real pace behind the scrum, with centre Chris Walsh and winger Ryan McGibbon making most headway.

The twelfth minute saw Walcountians cut the visitors’ lead when Walsh opened up the Whitgiftians defence with a mazy run and put scrum-half Wally Fourie away for a try.

Whitgiftians extended their lead with a penalty in the 17th minute but their increasing indiscipline in the face of a determined Walcountians XV saw them concede penalties in the 22nd and 27th minutes which Walcountians’ fly-half Chris Mockford put away to give Walcountians a half-time lead.

Walcountians maintained their discipline far better than the visitors in the second half and Chris Mockford played a significant part in their victory with an accomplished display of tactical kicking.

Walcountians also defended well with flankers Jack South and Scott Cook excelling along with Mockford and centres Sam Naylor and Chris Walsh.

Five minutes into the second half they nearly extended their lead when Naylor cut through the Whitgiftians defence with a slanting run and found full-back Callum Stone in support, but Stone lost his grip on the ball as he took a heavy tackle as he was about to go over.

Walcountians got their critical match-winning penalty in the ninth minute when Whitgiftians were caught offside. Chris Mockford put over his third penalty of the day.

Walcountians looked increasingly cohesive and solid as the second half progresses and successfully repelled Whitgiftians in a ten-minute spell when they were reduced to 14 men after number eigh Gavin Welsh was sin-binned.

The visitors narrowed the lead with a penalty four minutes from full-time but were unable to unlock Walcountians in the dying minutes.

Next Saturday, Walcountians open their defence of the Surrey Shield when they take on Battersea Ironsides.