Diss made the long journey to south London to beat the freeze on Saturday – and were pleased for a run-out, even though they lost their fourth successive game.

With their pitch at Borehamwood in Hertfordshire snowbound, Haberdashers made an early decision to switch the game to Barnes RFC, and were rewarded with a deserved victory.

The hosts scored all their points before Diss had got off the mark and two late converted tries from the visitors did little more than make the scoreline respectable.

John Laurie and Warren Wilby were the scorers, with Nick Harding adding a couple of conversions in the absence of Chris Beaird, who had picked up a neck injury in an off the ball incident.

The result saw Diss slip below Old Haberdashers in mid-table and Phil Sharpe's side will be anxious to get back to winning ways when they play host to Ruislip this Saturday.

'After all the bad weather it was nice to get a game, even though we lost it,' said Sharpe.

'One of two of the lads haven't even been able to train because of the snow and it showed at times.

'We made too many mistakes and they punished us.

'We were especially poor in the rucks where we were continually being punished for putting our hands in.'

Sharpe is keeping his fingers crossed that Beaird will not be out for too long following an incident that left him fuming.

'It was a really poor tackle from their player, totally unnecessary,' he said. 'He got a yellow card but in my opinion it should have been a red. We'll just have to wait and see how Chris is but it was a painful one.'