Eastbourne and Bognor both won to maintain the pressure on surprise early leaders Betteshanger in London Four South East.

Eastbourne were 17-0 winners at Beccehamian despite having 20 players unavailable.

Graham Shiret came out of retirement to sit on the bench and hailed his team-mates' spirited performance.

"I've never known a weekend when so many players have been unavailable," he said.

"We had the whole lot: injuries, work commitments and guys whose wives were expecting babies. If we'd have been offered a 3-0 win beforehand we would have taken it so it's a testament to the strength of the squad that we were able to do so well."

Matt Bremmer, Jamie Baldwin and Gavin Partridge scored the tries with Paul McKay adding a conversion.

Bognor head to Eastbourne in a fortnight's time in fine fettle after a 44-5 win at Askeans consolidated third place.

Skipper Karl Flynn and Andy Shipp both scored two tries with Lee Williams, Dale Stevens and Mark Henty also crossing. Shipp added a penalty and two conversions while veteran Stuart Pearce also kicked a conversion.

A last minute penalty condemned Hove to an 11-9 defeat against Guy's Hospital at a windswept Hove Park.

Martin Lovell kicked three penalties for the hosts in a scrappy encounter, but an effort with the last kick of the game sailed wide. Hove also had a try disallowed.

Not much went right for Uckfield as they suffered a second successive defeat, 12-11 at Folkestone.

Andy Rolands arrived 30 minutes late after taking the wrong exit off the motorway and injuries during the match meant substitute Henry Hadow eventually played in four different positions.

Nick Ridley kicked the visitors into a 6-0 lead, but Folkestone hit back with tries either side of half-time before Lee Evans went over in the corner to make it 12-11. Uckfield's hopes were scuppered, however, when scrum half Mark Poole was sin-binned with 15 minutes to go.