IT'S advantage Mannerians in the two-way battle for the league title with local rivals Ashbourne.

Ed Hutchinson's side despatched the Grantham outfit with 78 unanswered points whilst Ashbourne were being beaten 19-5 at fortress Market Rasen.

So in the clincher between the title chasers at Ashbourne on Saturday the home side will need to beat Mannerians by 60-odd clear points to take the spoils.

The scoreboard might suggest that it was the Elsworth and Moroney show given that the wings claimed nine tries between them, but this was a real team effort.

The forwards gave the platform, with Dan Driscoll stealing Kesteven lineout ball more or less at will and Pearce, Greagsby and Carr disrupting the visitors' scrum.

George Hutchinson had a weaselish debut in the second row and the loose forwards - Tom Moroney, Ben Sizer and Will Froggatt - provided the vital link between forwards and backs in a flowing display.

With the delicate Chris Westwood indisposed for the first half, John Moroney stepped in to the breach at scrum half, and what he lacked in positional experience he more than made up for in speed.

The skipper had pledged to play a running game to entertain the crowd of Mannerians vice presidents who'd gathered to run their eyes over the Class of 2008.

It wasn't long before the visitors' defence was stretched past breaking by tidy interplay between forwards and backs, and Froggatt was crashing over for the opener.

Then the backs starting working the ball out to Toms Oldfield and Elsworth, and Elsworth quickly powered his way to a hat-trick with Kesteven having no answer to his repertoire of pace changes.

He could have made it four before the interval had centre Will Moroney not decided to spin a splendid pass into the distant crowd instead of the waiting arms of Elsworth.

John Moroney nipped in for the last of the half after Carr added magisterial ball handling skills to his traditional mazy running in a line-breaking charge.

Westwood felt able to join the fun at half-time, with John Moroney resuming his normal wing position.

Having concentrated their efforts on defending Elsworth's wing, Kesteven were somewhat taken aback to find Moroney running at them as he clocked up a further four tries to give him a total of five for the day.

The visitors belatedly turned their attentions to defending that wing, which gave Elsworth room to cruise in for his fourth. Mannerians started to get White Line Fever as everybody fancied their chances of scoring, before the forwards resumed control.

Sizer took a clean lineout, Pearce and Carr instigated the rolling maul and Froggatt burst away up the blindside.

With support to his left and his right Froggatt flipped the pass to the fresh-legged Richard Templeman who trundled over a forlorn attempt at a tackle to crash in for the try of the day.

Not to be outdone, the skipper set himself the target of joining the try scorers and began a dummying frenzy, enabled by good work in the centres by Will Moroney and Henry Boot Ltd player-of-the-month for March, Rob Wells.

Full back Alex Graham began appearing at speed in interesting places, bounding replacement Max Crampton popped up everywhere in an energetic mix of sidesteps and hand-offs before the captain dummied again, wrong footed the defence and sprinted in to score.

He also converted nine of the 12 tries, including one splendid touchline effort in a comprehensive victory.

The Ashbourne fixture promises to be a far more challenging prospect, and Mannerians coach Chris Weeks and captain Hutchinson will doubtless be encouraging a more pragmatic approach in aiming to do the double over their old rivals.

For the latest league table, click here.