Merton secured a comprehensive victory at Haslemere despite taking some time to get going.

With Tim Rossiter their sixth captain of the season, Merton spent most of the opening 40 minutes in home territory, but the game was scoreless until Raonull MakKinnon slotted a penalty.

Although the visitors continued to threaten, they could not get their threequarters to fire, Josh McNamara, Danny Trick and Glenn Williamson all making breaks, but unable to trouble the scorers.

Jimmy McLoughlin came the closest when the official deemed that the ball had been held up when it was clearly placed over the line.

It was not long after the bustling Trick had been thwarted by the home full-back that a short ball from McNamara saw him break through again, however, this time he managed to sidestep the last line of defence to plunge over the whitewash.

Despite Mere having the larger pack, the visitors were performing admirably in the scrummage, prop Alan Power giving his opposite number a torrid time to enable the Merton eight to turn over good ball.

The second try came after a speculative kick out of defence fell to MacKinnon on the home ten metre line, the full-back then jinking both right and left before outpacing the cover defence to dive over for a great individual effort, which he converted himself.

With Merton only 15 points up at the break, head coach Kieran Blogg read the riot act at half-time and they finally strung some moves together in the second half.

Glenn Williamson helped himself to a brace, Rob Greenwood for an excellent solo score and, finally, replacement winger Adam Sitch making use of a superb break by James Newark to score minutes from time.