Haywards Heath are off the mark, out of the drop zone and ready to earn more points in the south west.

Skipper Alex Meredith led his side to a 43-16 win over Old Patesians at Whitemans Green in arguably their biggest Division Three South game to date.

It was a momentous victory, their first ever in the National League, and a valuable one too as it took them off the foot of the table and out of the bottom three.

Suitably encouraged, Heath have already named their side to travel next weekend to Redruth, who are suddenly wobbling after three straight defeats.

Heath themselves were not exactly watertight in the opening stages on Saturday, letting slip an early lead to trail 10-7 for a while, but two storming finishes from the captain turned the game.

He made the most of a rock solid Heath scrum to throw a dummy and then force his way over the last five yards with two tacklers hanging off him.

A similar score just before the break, following initial charges by Andrew Cook and Glenn Rankin, pushed the home lead out to 21-13.

Heath's assorted wingers ran in four more sparkling tries during a super second half.

Cook's express entry into the line from full back sent Stuart Charnley in, Huw Griffin dived over twice and Mark Pymm, playing out of position in the centre, got over with the help of a clever dummy.

Dave Wattam gave two scoring passes which was just as well as he had literally thrown away a try when letting slip of the ball as he performed a theatrical dive for the line.

Griffin added four conversions.

Heath have scored 11 tries in their last two games and are full of confidence again.

Meredith said: "We knew there was a lot of pressure on us but we showed a lot of belief and it was a really good team effort.

"I wasn't too happy with the first half because we made too many mistakes but I thought in the second half we showed exactly what we can do when we've got the ball."

Although the backs scored all the points, that solid forward effort was also key to success.

Heath established a decent platform in the tight and there were some memorable moments in the loose.

They included John Salisbury's interception and scoring pass for Griffin's first try and the sight of Will DeGruchy charging through the middle and sending out a long pass to Charnley who was stopped just short of the corner.

Charnley, who came on as a replacement for the injured Jon Groenen, keeps his place for the trip west.

Groenen returns at centre alongside Paul Fleming, whose dart through a midfield gap gave Heath their first try after just seven minutes.

Gordon Denslow returns at hooker in place of Tom Gribble.