London Cornish head coach Dickon Moon hailed his side’s spirit after a nail-biting 27-26 win at Winchester maintained their unbeaten start to the season and kept them top of London Division Two South West.

Tries from Mark Osei-Tutu, Ben Ievers, Ciaran Acford and Hamish Cuming, plus seven points off the boot of Luke Spells did the business in Hampshire despite the side missing its entire front row.

Moon said: “It was a particularly gratifying win, after losing our starting front row and had to field an untried group who were excellent today.

“Winchester is a particularly difficult place to come to, and this is possibly our first win here.

“It is particularly good to earn the bonus point, which shows we have great spirit.”

He added: “We had so much travelling support today so it was good for them to see us win.

“The bandwagon keeps rolling, and we have a cup match next week and then Portsmouth at home in the league, so we hope to have a few players back for that.”

Cornish face Old Cooperians this weekend in the RFU Intermediate Cup, kick off 2pm.

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Coming through: London Cornish captain Dave Theobald charges towards the line