Athens and Rhodes kept up a strong pace at the top of the Greek championship with both sides recording their second wins of the season in round 2.

Attica Springboks and Spartans both notched up their first wins of the season in the other games played at the weekend.

Athens, champions for the last two years, ran in ten tries - three of them from international winger Thanasis Tzatzalos - as they beat Iraklis 54-8 in Thessaloniki.

The game, however, was not all one-way traffic. Athens only led 15-0 at the break and although they stepped up a gear in the second half, the home side still managed to produce enough pressure get on the scoreboard with a second half try and penalty.

Rhodes beat Mecedones Evosmos 24-10 in a patchy game on the island.

The Thessaloniki side, visiting Rhodes for the first time, kept it tight in the forwards and used their strong front row to excellent effect. Indeed both of the Mecedones tries came through the forwards.

Rhodes showed patches of flair in the first half but los the plot slightly in the second half with too many dropped balls. None the less they scored four tries through Karageorgiou, Fronis, Koutsoukos and Arfaras.

Attica Springboks recorded their first win of the season as they ran in nine tries to hammer Spartakos 56-0.

One statistic that the scoreboard does not show is that because of some withdrawals, Spartakos played the game with just 12 men - and even coach Babis Demertzis was called into action as he came on as a second half substitute.

The game was duly played with uncontested scrums but Attica still had too much power for Spartakos.

International lock Vassilis "Billy" Poulopoulos touched down twice and number eight Vincent Peducasse added a third try just before the break. One conversion and a penalty from Mike Henderson made it 20-0 at the turnaround.

In the second half, Attica continued to dominate a tiring Spartakos side.

Right wing opened the scoring with a try two minutes into the half and further tries followed from hooker Eden Tipene, left wing Sotiris Stergioulis, Peducasse again, centre Nontas Serafeim, and finally Giannis Paschalidis.

Henderson converted four of the tries as well as that first half penalty.

If Spartakos were disappointed with the result then they may take some encouragement from the words of Attica coach Nick Clarke.

"I was impressed with the way they approached the game even with 12 men," he said. "It showed real guts and deserve credit for turning up and playing as hard as they did.

In the other game played in round 2, Spartans made short work of Trikala who had been forced to forfeit their opening game two weeks ago.

The Athens side ran in 14 tries in a 74-0 win with two each from John Koury, Stephanos Petritsopoulos, George Tsililis and John Tsogas.

*The game between Mecedones Evosmos and Trikala in round one has been awarded to the hosts after Trikala failed to turn up. Mecedones have been awarded three points for the win.