IT WAS a disappointing weekend for our sides in division one as Hadleigh & Thundersley were soundly beaten by Hainault & Clayhill, while Southend & EMT were smashed by Chingford.

Hadleigh won the toss at John Burrows Park and set Hainault a total of 221 to win, with Tom Phillippe's half-century their best performance with the bat.

And league leaders Hainault, who came down from the premier division last season, had little trouble knocking off the runs required as they hit 223 off of 43 overs and with six wickets in hand.

A knock of 125 from Chingford's Ben MacGregor put them firmly in control as they declared on 269 for the loss of just four wickets.

The hosts then had the Seasiders out for 174 in just shy of 43 overs with only Modassar Ibrahim managing any real resistance with 78 before he was caught by Ryan Harris off the bowling of Nick Shawyer.

It all left Southend bottom of the early-season table, and Hadleigh just outside the bottom two following a win, an abandonment, and the weekend's defeat.

Hadleigh captain Adam Fleming said: "Hainault are a decent side with four good spinners, and they all played well.

"And we were 120-5 at one stage to get up to 220 was a good effort.

"And we got three of their wickets quite quickly and if we could have taken a couple more we would have had a chance.

"But they had a good middle-order partnership and that saw them home."

Orsett lost in pretty comprehensive fashion too as they suffered a five-wicket defeat to Harlow.

Orsett elected to bat and posted a total of 284 - the majority coming from skipper Kevin Sargent (62 no), and half-centuries from Stuart Moon (52) and Chanaka Withanage (56).

But Harlow's Ahmed Khawaja led the run chase with 110 and Usman Jan's 93 also helped the hosts to 288 with eight overs to spare.