Green and Whites dismantle basement boys Ashford

The Green and Whites ran in 10 tries in total as Mike Watts and Arun Thompson both touched down braces.

Mike Tredgett, Ollie Harcus and James Johnson were also on the scoresheet, while Will Bell scored six conversions.

The result leaves Horsham sixth in the table, but narrows the gap on third-placed Dartfordians to just three points in a congested four places in the standings.

Leaders Tunbridge Wells and second-placed Sevenoaks look to be in a straight slog for the title and Horsham head coach Nick Stocker believes it is their consistency which has put them in that position.

He said: “Like I said to the boys, it is which team that turns up of the day with them. On their day, they are as good as anyone when they decide to play.

“That said three or four weeks ago we went down to Thanet Wanderers and lost away from home. It is that consistency that is missing.

“We can achieve what Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks have, but we need that consistency, that is what they have and what we need to show. That is what we are suffering from as even in this league, you will get punished if you are just five per cent off your game.

“Look at it this way, we are the only team apart from Sevenoaks who scored 80 against them, no other team put more past Ashford than we have.

“Although you can only beat the side that is put in front of you, we could have scored two or three more with better application and execution, which would have taken us past the 80-point mark as well.”

Horsham now travel to Tunbridge Wells for a fourth round RFU Intermediate Cup match on Saturday.

Their hosts and league rivals are sitting pretty at the top of London 2 South East with 16 wins from 16 games.

Horsham are four wins from a final at Twickenham and a high-scoring warm-up will have raised the confidence.

Stocker believes his side are underdogs, but said: “Tunbridge Wells made it absolutely, exceptionally clear they were going for promotion this year and there are all sorts of rumours of what they are paying their players.

“We know we can score tries against them and we hope we can cause an upset, that’s what cup rugby is all about. We are not going down there to make up the numbers.”