Esher claimed a five-point victory at home against Macclesfield after five converted tries proved too much for the Blues.

Captain Tom Eaton’s penalty goal was the only consolation for the visiting side as the Blues struggled to convert try-scoring opportunities.

Blues’ director of rugby Geoff Wappett said: "It’s always disappointing to lose but they’re a quality side and they’re obviously even more of a threat when they are at home.

"I thought in the first half, if you strip that game down, we had marginally more position than they had, it’s just that we looked so fragile whenever they had the ball.

"We banged away and worked hard and did an awful lot of good things without reward."

Macclesfield kicked off and soon took back possession; Eaton and hooker Tom Cruse in particular were impressive going forward.

Esher began to demonstrate their power as big tackles stopped the Macc attacks, the ball turned over for the home side to counter-attack.

After eight minutes a strong Esher driving maul gained 20 yards.

The ball was kicked out wide to Andrew Wright on the right wing, who passed inside to full-back Charlie Walker to score an impressive try.

Fly-half Gareth Morgan added the extras to give Esher a 7-0 advantage.

Minutes later number eight Jack Clifford doubled their lead as he charged through the centre of the pitch, Morgan again on target with the conversion.

Macclesfield hit back after the restart, a foul on Jack Moorhouse allowed Eaton to score the penalty to go 14-3.

The Blues took advantage of the momentum but the poor weather made handling an issue and the ball turned over after a fumbled pass.

After 20 minutes centre Chris Elder scored another soft try, converting himself with Morgan off the field.

Macclesfield continued to create attacking chances. Alan Marsh in particular came close but attacks continually broke down against a resilient defence.

Esher’s Richard Smart scored their fourth try just minutes before half-time, Elder converting again to give the home side a 28-3 advantage at the break.

Ollie Frost saw yellow soon into the second half after conceding a penalty in a lineout, allowing the Blues to hold possession and continue to find attacking opportunities.

On the hour mark, Walker scored his second converted try, latching onto his own kick over the try-line to make it 35-3.

Macclesfield held out for the remainder of the match and Ed Stobart in particular was a thorn in Esher’s side as they attempted to press down the left wing.

It was a well-deserved win and bonus point for Esher while the Blues returned home empty-handed.

Wappett added: "That first try looked better than it was. What happened was that they were smart enough and sharp enough to recognise the opportunity to execute it so in that sense it was a good try.

"Relatively speaking, they did marvellously well with the small number of attacking situations.

"Whenever they had an attacking situation it seemed that they converted it into points.

"While they were a couple of really well-worked tries, they were helped enormously by us. The first try certainly was, because we were out of position.

"The second try came from them winning our lineout ball and a couple of pretty indifferent tackles that led to the score so we were 14-3 down pretty rapidly.

"We could blame ourselves for that but they were obviously athletic, dynamic and hard to hold and, in the second half, we showed a lot of bottle to get the ball and keep it for long periods.

"We made much more of a nuisance of ourselves.

"We weren’t bullied and knocked about in quite the same way as in the first half.

"Consequently they only scored the one try and we at least threatened on a number of occasions without getting anything for it so it’s disappointing.

"I think Edd Stobart has been really good in recent weeks, he’s been very lively, and the other guy who I’m pleased with is Elliot Brierley.

"This was his third really impressive, dynamic game on the trot. I thought Matt Rhodes played better, there is a lot of life in Matt, but we’re just not converting those positions that I’ve talked about into anything of worth."

Next week the Blues have a weekend off in the National League One, the next match comes on December 8 as they host Wharfedale.