ANDOVER Rugby Club recorded another crucial victory in the fight for survival, beating relegation threatened Weybridge Vandals 14-7.

The West London club are notoriously tough to beat at home with their robust style, but even short of a few regulars due to injury and unavailability, the young ‘All Blacks’ overcame their relegation rivals.

Ed Williams ran the game from his unaccustomed role at stand off and Niko Rowe and Charlie Waite again showed their quality.

However it was Stefan Long and James Dawson, both stepping in to the side, that really impressed.

The pair were excellent in defence and attack and showed once and for all that the depth of this Andover squad is the key to consolidating at this level.

Despite playing away, Andover dominated from the off and only a series of handling errors in the poor conditions prevented an early score.

On fourteen minutes Andover struck with a piece of individual brilliance.

From a scrum in midfield the impressive Ollie Lindridge fed Stefan Long and with fifty metres to go the powerful wing just blasted through three defenders to give Charlie Waite the easiest of conversions.

Andover immediately went for the throat and after a spell of pressure, in which Weybridge received a yellow card, they once again made their dominance tell.

Tom Erskine stole a great ball in midfield and when it found its way to Waite, the young full back sprinted past the defensive cover and delivered a lovely offload to the supporting Long to score.

Waite again converting.

Andover looked in complete charge, but as Weybridge mounted a rare attack, Waite killed the ball and was yellow carded. Weybridge elected not to kick the easy penalty and Andover held firm until the break.

In the second half Andover played well and still dominated the game but were wasteful with the ball and didn’t capitalise on their superiority.

As the half wore on Weybridge sensed that they were not out of the game and grew in confidence.

Andover became frustrated with not putting the game to bed and with ten minutes left, the home side made them pay with a fine converted try.

It could have been a tense finish, but this Andover side are maturing well and they simply picked themselves up and closed the game out.

Matt Moore and Simon Preece were again outstanding in defence and with Kieran Jenvey putting out fires everywhere, there was no way through for Weybridge.

Weybridge never threatened again and Waite was denied a score after a tight call for a forward offload by Ed Williams.

That was the final action of the game and Andover gratefully left West London with four valuable points.

After the match, Coach Andy Waite said: “It’s a reflection of how far we’ve come that the lads were a bit disappointed we didn’t get a bonus point today.

“We played well despite all the changes and we certainly could have added to the score in the second half.”

“That said away wins are always hard to come by and this was a real battling performance and we are starting to look like we really believe we belong at this level.”