Tottonians warmed up for their forthcoming top-of-the-table clash by blitzing Berkshire side Tadley at the weekend.

And the 58-10 London 2 South-West victory at Water Lane went some way to boosting Totts’ points difference as they chase down leaders London Cornish, who they face in a fortnight’s time.

Battling Tadley put up a brave fight but could do little to stem wave after wave of attacks from a strong Totts squad who want top place back.

Tottonians had the bonus point wrapped up by half-time as they turned around 34-3 up.

Captain Robbie Searle gave the scoreboard notice of a busy afternoon when he slotted home a drop goal after a couple of minutes.

Five tries followed before the break. Mike Searle touched down between the posts and then breezed past three would-be tacklers to ground his second.

Full-back and man-of-the-match Bart van Herwijnen followed up with a couple of identical scores as he dummied his way through the defence and Scott Rogers got in on the act in the corner.

Dan Taylor missed ten minutes of the first half through a yellow card.

Tadley upped their game for the first 15 minutes of the second half but that came to an end with mass fisticuffs, which led to Tottonians’ Nick Jones and Tadley’s hooker and scrum-half spending ten minutes on the sidelines.

Gareth Allen then got the home side back on the scoreboard with a try before Tadley’s determined 13 players produced their only try of the afternoon.

Number 8 Dan Stocks crash over to keep Totts on a roll but their best try of the game came when van Herwijnen brought up his hat-trick.

Rogers kicked down the line from well within his own half and players from both sides went on the chase. But they were left standing by Bart’s bolt down the touchline. He got to the ball first, kicked forward and followed up to touch down.

And his speed produced the final score of the game as he raced to the touchline and stretched to place the ball over the line as he was tackled.

Coach Gavin Williams said: “That performance just shows the importance of having as many your good players on the pitch as you can. In saying that, the lads who have got us to this point have done really well. Bart’s man of the match performance shows how important he is to us.”

Williams, who had special praise for young prop Tom Gregory, added: “Tadley are not a bad side and will win a few games this season. The result is more a measure of how well we played today.”