Three tries and a penalty saw Enfield Ignatians record a comfortable victory over Hitchin and move up to second in London 3 North West.

An early penalty from Jake Bates got them on their way and he provided all three conversions from tries for Frank Antwi, Jonny Dixon and Gareth Rutt.

The game took place on the 4G surface at Cheshunt RFC on Thursday night after the original fixture on February 29 had been postponed by the weather. Ignatians opted to transfer the fixture to allow the surface at their usual home ground to continue to recover.

Ignatians got underway when Hitchin were penalised for holding on and Bates tucked away the penalty, and he then calmly slotted in a conversion after Antwi went over from close range.

After going into the half-time break ahead by 10, the hosts went further ahead early in the second half when Dixon went over in the left corner and good interplay between the forwards and backs.

They made the game safe with six minutes of time remaining Dom Nott ran through and almost added a spectacular solo try, but once he was stopped, Rutt provided the follow-up work to net the third and final try of the game.

The win moves Ignatians above Stevenage Town into second, eight points behind Old Streetonians.

Head coach Shane Manning said of the win: “Hitchin are a forward-orientated side and we set out to test their fitness. We got into some good field positions. However, our finishing was sloppy at times and we probably left four to five tries out on the paddock.”

Next up for Ignatians is a trip to Royston on Saturday, March 21.