Rosslyn Park moved to the top of National League One thanks to a seven-try win over Fylde, and Ealing’s shock home defeat by Old Albanians.

Nev Edwards scored two tries, while Tom Baldwin, Dom Shabbo, Steve Parsons, Hugo Ellis and Sam Katz also went over - Katz added 17 points with the boot - for a 52-29 win.

The match got off to a dream start for Park when they attacked up the left from kick off, Ellis drew defenders to his powerful run before passing outside for the lethal Edwards to dart over.

Fly half Katz – a late replacement for Ross Laidlaw who had a tight muscle in his kicking leg – was left a difficult conversion, rendered impossible when he slipped on contact with the ball.

The 5-0 lead was short-lived as Fylde’s smart attacking game, continually off-loading to a support runner, began to find holes in the home defence and centre Stephen Briers skipped over, fly half Chris Johnson adding the conversion for 5-7 on four minutes.

Park looked the more dangerous side, but their defensive pattern seemed designed to combat a different threat to that which Fylde posed and Johnson was able to kick his side further into the lead when Park conceded a penalty.

That spurred Park on to apply even more pressure. They appeared to have a clear advantage in the scrums and in the tight, and when only illegal intervention prevented a rampant home pack from driving over the referee had no hesitation in running round behind the posts to signal the penalty try. Katz converted for 12-10 on 17 minutes.

Fylde, however, were far from done for and again exploited some unusually poor defence when winger Ollie Brennan got on the end of a good move to put his side back in the lead at 12-15 on 20 minutes.

In a real ding dong contest – great stuff for spectators, but enough to have a defensive coach tearing his hair out – Katz nailed a penalty to bring the scores level on 24 minutes. Park kept up the pressure and a well-worked routine at the line-out saw them drive over with Baldwin touching down out wide for 20-15.

The lead lasted only four minutes before visiting scrum half Ryan de la Harpe was allowed to snipe a try, converted by Johnson for 20-22, as the home defence again failed.

The see-saw still had not stopped, though, and Park stormed back with a super try by the always-dangerous Shabbo, converted by Katz, and then Edwards rounded off the half with another good try out wide on the left to bring the interval at 32-22.

Quite what was said in the home dressing room during the interval is not public knowledge, but it certainly stiffened up Park’s defensive capabilities and – while Fylde continued to compete with their attacking brand of rugby – Park’s better all-round play now had a firm defensive base behind it, and they edged away.

After only five minutes of the half, centre Parsons powered over. Katz converted and then adding a penalty two minutes later for 42-22.

Park continued to buzz and, inevitably, Ellis powered through to grab a try on 51 minutes to effectively put the game beyond Fylde at 49-22.

Brave Fylde never gave up trying but they were now no match for the home side.

On 66 minutes Katz accepted a penalty kick at goal to rack up the half-century at 52-22.

That seemed to be that, except for a bizarre finale. When Connor McDonald came on as a replacement, he was not to know that his side were under warning from the referee for persistent infringement so when he entered a ruck from the wrong position he was completely gobsmacked to see the referee waving a yellow card in his direction, ending his league debut for Park after only five minutes.

Things got worse for Park when shortly afterwards a sickening accidental clash of heads saw replacement scrum half Matt Heeks stretchered off, reducing Park to 13 men as Fylde battled for a consolation bonus point.

With only seconds to go, prop Will Bigley joined his colleague in the sin bin to reduce his team to only 12.

Replacement scrum half Craig Aikman grabbed the try that gave Fylde the bonus point that their enterprising rugby certainly deserved, and Johnson’s third successful conversion brought an end to proceedings at 52-29.

Park travel to Blackheath this weekend.