Tabard were punished heavily after slumping to a 43-0 defeat at Old Haberdashers on Saturday in London Two North West.

A recent spate of injuries, especially in the scrum, left Tabard fielding a reasonably weak side against local rivals Old Haberdashers which ultimately proved costly.

Tabard started a little slowly and an early error when they were caught off side resulted in Haberdashers scrum half TimWalker kicking the penalty to give his side the first score.

The game then settled down but Tabard were not strong enough in the scrum to get any meaningful possession and another offside decision gave Haberdashers a further penalty for Walker to convert.

At the same time Tabard lost their hooker, Chris Beadle and their scrum was further weakened.

This came to haunt Tabard when a fumbled take over the Tabard goal line gave Haberdashers a five metre scrum and they scored a pushover try, claimed by flanker Matt Lowcock and converted by Walker.

Haberdashers then stretched their lead with a further penalty from Walker before they scored a try in injury time at the end of the first half.

Centre Sanderson touching down and Walker again converting, to bring the half time score to 23-0 against Tabard.

After the turnaround Haberdashers got an early penalty again but Tabard, with the wind on their backs, put in a much better performance with crisp passing from both forwards and backs.

But Habs were able to score three more tries, Lowcock scoring his second from the lineout, centre Simon Miller going over almost from the kick off and then Sanderson got his second to complete a disappointing defeat for Tabard.

Tabard’s next fixture is a home game against Harpenden on Saturday, November 7.