Southwold maintained top spot with a crushing win on a day when the gulf in class between the two sides was evident.

The depleted Crusaders side, with several first choice players missing, never kicked for goal even when awarded a couple penalties in front of the posts and showed an excellent attitude throughout.

That said it was a stunning display of running rugby from the visitors, stemming from class, fitness and lots of hard work on the training ground.

It took Wold only four minutes to open the scoring when James Hall took a penalty quickly and fed Luke Wade who timed his run to perfection to muscle over the line for a great try which he duly converted.

Then Crusaders lost the ball in the tackle and in the blink of an eye Wold had gathered the loose ball and Patrick Stevens was over for a try in the left-hand corner.

Wold's third was a cracker of a try from a well-rehearsed lineout move, scored by Pete Holmes, and converted by Wade and a further score came when Matt Howell's line break ended with Jacob English scoring his opener, again converted.

Wold took their tally to 40 points with two more converted tries in first-half injury-time from Sam Webb and a brilliant effort from Callum Anthony.

It was a similar story of Southwold dominance after the interval. Twice in the space of a couple of minutes English beat his marker for pace to score cracking tries before Hall picked the ball up at the back of the scrum and fed Stevens who dived over.

Straight from the kick-off after the conversion was missed, the ball was gathered by Wold and when Anthony kicked up the right-hand touchline, it was English who again got there first and after beating one man he fed the ball inside to Anthony who ran clear to score again under the posts.

There was by now nothing that the tiring, shadow-chasing home side could do to stop the onslaught as Wold were simply rampant and winning all possession all over the pitch from the set-pieces and the loose.

A further two tries each from Stevens and Anthony – to bring their personal tallies to four – completed the scoring.