Gravesend showed they have found their feet in the national leagues after turning around a half-time deficit to beat Basingstoke 34-17 on Saturday.

Gravesend soon found themselves in the home twenty-two, but missed tackles as the hosts broke out of defence saw Gs concede two converted tries inside seven minutes.

Gravesend were quickly back on the front foot and as the forwards, ably led by skipper Jamie Forsyth, recycled the ball, a move out wide on the right saw Ziggy Stevens open Gs’ account, though Dave Dorton narrowly missed the conversion from the touch line.

The sides exchanged penalty misses while the visitors maintained territorial superiority and time and again had their opponents under pressure only to see the ball lost forward, or killed on the ground.

A penalty increased the hosts lead before Dorton replied on 32 minutes to make it 17-8 and one minute before half-time the forwards made room for Adam Bishop to burst through to touch down, with Dorton narrowing the score to 17-15 with the final kick of the half.

A Dorton penalty three minutes after the restart gave Gs a lead they would not relinquish and three more penalties made it 27-17.

The scoring was completed late on when Bishop burst down the wing, only to be brought to earth a metre short of the line by a high tackle, which the referee punished by awarding a penalty try, which Dorton converted, to seal a fine second-half performance.