Whitstable opened their account early through captain Ben Cliff as the hooker peeled off the back of a maul on the Greenwich 22 and darted down the blindside. Cliff showed a good initial turn of pace before shrugging off the tackles of two Greenwich defenders to slide in in the corner. Conversion missed.

After a series of infringements from Whitstable Greenwich got themselves on the scoreboard when their flyhalf slotted a simple penalty for their solitary score of the day.

On the 20 minute mark fly half Marck Olive got himself on the scoresheet. Attacking deep from their half, Greenwich began to move the ball through the hands inside their own half before James Garland intercepted the ball. The centre was caught short but the ball was quickly recycled and soft hands from Andrew Huey sent Olive cruising in out wide for 10-3.

Whitstable came close to a third score late in the half when Olive drilled a crossfield kick low into to Greenwich corner for winger Powell to chase. Powell’s impressive pace beat his opposite man to the ball but he was unable to gather the ball over the Greenwich try line.

That would be it for the half, but 3 minutes into the second half and Captain Cliff was back in the driving seat as he cut a short line off Huey to carry over from close range for his second and Whitstable’s third, which seemed to spark the Blues into life as they lifted the tempo.

The bonus point try came soon after. With a scrum on their 5m line, the Greenwich flyhalf was unable to clear his lines and spilt the ball a metre from his try line and Olive was quickest to react, scooping the ball up and sliding across for a fortuitous score. 20 – 3.

Whitstable should have had a fifth after spreading the ball wide in the Greenwich half. The Blues took advantage of a generous overlap when Till raced over in the corner, but the fullback failed to ground the ball.

Eventually Whitstable’s fifth did come. Surging carries from Hudson and Holness got Whitstable on the front foot before the ball found its way to Garland. As the centre took the ball to the line the Greenwich winger raced out of the line to close off the pass, but Garland exploited the gap as ghosted through untouched. Converted by Huey. 27-3.

With the clock running out, Whitstable pushed for one final score, despite having secured all 5 points and it came on the stroke of full time when second row Andy Newman took Whitstable past the 30 point barrier. As the ball moved through the hands of the Whitstable backs Newman found himself in the wide channel to take a short ball at pace and crash over out wide for the sixth try of the day. Huey converted from out wide to take the final score to 34-3.

Despite never getting into their top gear, and leaving several scores going begging, the South East outfit edged closer to the promotion to Kent 1 with another bonus point win.

League rivals Foots Cray suffered a shock home defeat to Lordswood, Whitstable’s next opponent, to relieve the pressure at the top.

Match report credit to Andy Till