HAVERHILL & DISTRICT 3, HOLT 6: Holt marked their first visit to newly promoted Haverhill with a hard-fought victory in Eastern Counties One.

Haverhill were able to get into Holt's half through the generous number of penalties conceded and were off target with a kick at goal after 25 minutes.

Two minutes later the visitors were reduced to 14 men and again had two let-offs, with missed attempts at goal through a penalty and a drop goal effort.

The start of the second half again saw Holt concede a penalty which was missed. The visitors were still displaying a lack of discipline towards the referee and on two occasions were taken a further 19 metres back.

Fortunately no score resulted from these lapses and after 18 minutes Holt were awarded a penalty which Allen converted.

The visitors were soon back on level terms with a penalty of their own but this setback inspired Holt to try to salvage something from the game and following more pressure, Allen put his side back into the lead with another penalty with 14 minutes remaining.

Holt then had several moves which came to nothing through the final pass going astray but they held on for a narrow win.

• Thetford 26, Hadleigh 27

After last week's heavy defeat to Ipswich YMCA, Thetford knew they had to improve to beat Hadleigh.

Right from the start Thetford showed that the result was behind them, driving the Hadleigh scrum back at will and dominating in the line-out.

Hadeligh scored the first try but Thetford were soon on the scoreboard with a penalty by Tony Watson and a try by Dexter's man-of-the-match Dale Bishop.

After a penalty for Hadleigh, Thetford scored the try of the game through Matt Bailey. Tony Watson then converted a penalty to make it 20-8 at half-time.

A Hadleigh try was countered by another Watson penalty and Thetford were dreaming of their first league win in a year. But Hadleigh responded with two quick tries in the last 10 minutes to edge home by one point and leave the hosts stunned.