It took two tries in the final fifteen minutes from skipper James Dance to steal victory from Darfordians who had been the better side for the first hour of this game.

Medway, in their final home game of the season, were presented with the league title after the final whistle from Mike Cordell of Kent RFU. Dartfordians are locked in a very close battle with Old Colfeians, Beckenham and Charlton Park for second place in the league, and thus were desperate for victory.

Medway grabbed an early 7 – 0 lead when Jordan Stubbington took a tap down in the line out and a barn storming run saw him score a try just to the left of the posts. Warzynski converted and the home team had made the perfect start. Unfortunately nothing more positive followed for the next sixty minutes! Medway’s game was littered with mistakes and every time they had the ball, possession was quickly surrendered to Darts. Medway lost influential second row Max Easton early on with a dislocated thumb. Darts reduced the arrears to 7 – 3 when they kicked a simple penalty after 22 minutes but despite their superior approach play and possession advantage, they could not break down the stubborn home defence and the score remained unchanged until half time.

Darts had the advantage of the wind in the second period and quickly took a narrow 8 – 7 lead when their number 8 took a quick penalty to set up a try wide on the left. Medway’s problems got worse as Joe Fernyhough was sin binned after 6 minutes and hooker Billy Sandison went off injured.

Darts were looking dangerous with every attack and scored their second try after 10 minutes following excellent approach play and a long passage of possession, 15 -7 to the visitors. Critically for Dartfordians, they had a player red carded for a second yellow card offence after 55 minutes. For a while this didn’t seem to affect their play, still looking the better side and most likely to win the game.

Medway however, are not league winners by accident and slowly but surely their game started to come together. Passes started to go to hand, patient possession, increased tempo and an urgency cam into their game. They scored a fantastic team try after 26 minutes when a passage of play consisting of what seemed like at least 25 phases created a simple gap for scrum half James Dance to ghost through and touch down. Wardzynski’s conversion narrowed Darts lead to 15 – 14.

Ten minutes later, another good passage of play and a line break break by Luke Burns allowed Dance to race away to score his second try and steal the game.

Dartfordians can consider themselves unlucky to lose but the home team showed good character to come from behind and grind out the win in a game where they were well below their best.

Medway’s man of the match went to skipper James Dance who made several try saving tackles and also scored the two crucial tries to salvage this result and preserve Medway’s unbeaten record at home this season.

Medway’s team;

Cooley, Sandison, O’Leary, Fernyhough, Easton, Beaumont, Stubbington, Huntley, S Garofalo, Wardzynski, Burns, Hall, Walsh, Chalmers, J Dance, Subs; Petch, Humphrey, Clement (all used).