Enfield Ignatians have climbed a few mountains this season but the Chiswick challenge proved beyond them as they fell to a disappointing 41-12 loss at Duke’s Meadow.

The visitors had dug deep against Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn this season, but they were effectively undone by a poor first-half display after trailing 20-0 at the break.

Ignatians continued to struggle on the 4G pitch after the break and, after leaking a further two tries and trailing 34-0, the blue and golds mounted a belated rally against a good outfit.

Having raised the tempo, the Enfield pack drove over and regained possession of the ball close to the Chiswick line before Charlie Hoy, a standout presence for the visitors, plunged over.

Jordan Wilson added the extras which proved the prelude to a second try as the visitors successfully stretched Chiswick to breaking point before second row Gareth Rutt darted over.

Ignatians’ progress stalled again after their hosts, having proved very crisp and effective passers of the ball, again showed their slickness of their wide game by claiming their sixth and final try.

It continued to be all about damage limitation for Ignatians and they went all out to rescue a losing bonus point by trying to engineer a further two tries.

However, it wasn’t to be their day and messed up a couple of good chances, including one for a forward pass, and consequently went home empty handed.

Player-coach Shane Manning said: “We went away from our structure, and particularly in the first half, when we made mistakes and, consequently, our whole game plan went out of the window.

“In the second half, we rediscovered part of our structure and improved our line speed. However, we remain very much a work in progress.”