Diss Rugby Club suffer another defeat in London 1 North at the hands of rivals North Walsham

An already tough season hit a new low for Diss Rugby Club on Saturday as they were thrashed 67-0 at rivals North Walsham.

Hosting North Walsham have been in fine form this term, losing just twice to keep them in the London 1 North title picture.

In contrast, Diss made the trip with 13 defeats out of 13 to their name, making relegation a real possibility.

And the result reflected the final outcome in bitterly cold conditions at Norwich Road as rock bottom Diss head into Christmas 14 points adrift of safety.

The home side started brightly and took the lead in just the third minute when Matt Hodgson broke the line, James Knight’s diagonal dummy run created the space and Joe Milligan finished off his first try of the afternoon in impressive fashion.

Matt Hodgson was accurate with the subsequent conversion and the Vikings were on their way.

Will Hodgson added a second try soon after, leaving his brother Matt with a routine conversion to make it 14-0, by which point it was already looking like being a long afternoon for the travelling Blues.

Swift tries from Jim Riley and Milligan – both converted by Matt Hodgson – put North Walsham further in the ascendancy, before the latter ran three quarters of the pitch to complete his hat-trick and send North Walsham into the break 35 points to the good.

The tries continued to flow for the home side in the second half, with James Knight dotting down first after the restart.

However, on this occasion the previously reliable Matt Hodgson – kicking into the wind – was off target.

Three swift tries followed in the next 10 minutes: full-back Donavin Dejongh finishing off after some smart forward play, Milligan running 30m to take his tally to four tries for the afternoon and Will Swart getting in on the action.

All of the conversion attempts held up in the wind, leaving North Walsham 55-0 up.

Two more tries were scored before the game was out – one from debutant Michael Mulhall and the other courtesy of Riley. The latter of those was right between the posts, allowing Lee Thomson to score the first conversion of the second half.

Dave Smith’s men will now regroup ahead of hosting Luton on January 5 (2pm) at Mackenders.

Luton, who were promoted during the summer, make the trip in the division’s final safe spot after picking up a total of three wins from their 14 fixtures.