In-form Havant head up London & SE Premier table after securing comfortable win over Sutton & Epsom

Knight saw his men concede just three points on their way to claiming a 27-3 victory over Sutton & Epsom at Hooks Lane on Saturday.

The teams were separated by two divisions when rugby came to a halt because of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, but Havant' s promotion and Sutton's relegation down from National 2 South sees them both in the London & SE Premier this season.

For Havant, it was a third successive win to start campaign, and Knight has been delighted with his side's early performances.

The Havant head coach said: ‘It’s a good start, there’s no doubt about that, we’re all absolutely delighted.

‘I think being top of the table at this stage is nice but slightly irrelevant in the sense that it will no doubt change week on week. We’ll definitely take it.

‘I was delighted with the nature of the performance at the weekend which gave us a big victory over a decent team who have just jumped down from the level above.

‘Certainly, on Saturday, not only did we defend well, but when we had our opportunities we took them well.

‘It was very pleasing, it would have been nice to get four tries, but I’m not going to be greedy.’

Two converted penalties from Jacob Knight gave Havant a 6-0 advantage at the break.

Tries came after the restart from Scott Morris, Wes Dugan and Jacob Knight as the hosts made it a hat-trick of wins to start the season.

But it was the solid foundation provided by Havant's backline which gave head Knight the greatest satisfaction.

He added: ‘Defensively it was massive. We put in a hell of a shift defensively, we were pretty unbreakable in terms of coming through us, they had a lot of possession - it wasn’t as though we completely dominated possession and therefore they didn’t have opportunities.

‘There were a couple of periods where they had 20-odd phases but our defence stood firm.

‘It’s a massive point of pride for us, it’s something we really emphasise in training and in our game preparation, defensively we want to be the best team in the league and we showed on Saturday we have the capability to do that.’