Medway claimed a 29-24 comeback win over Civil Service Rugby on Saturday in the first return fixture of their season in Regional 1 South East.

Having been defeated 30-7 in September, Medway avenged that loss to move off the bottom of the table and up to 10th.

“It has been coming,” Medway coach Taff Gwilliam said.

“We have been showing plenty of character in narrow losses recently, so it was great to see us get over the line.

“The boys deserved this. They have been working hard, both on and off the field, and the win is just reward for that effort.”

From the kick-off, the hosts were awarded a penalty. That kick went wide but Max Bullock made amends three minutes later.

Medway were dominating field position in the early stages and, under pressure, CS Rugby conceded further penalties. Bullock added two more successful kicks to make it 9-0 after 25 minutes.

But kicking and handling errors deep in the CS half saw Medway punished and two counter-attack tries, off these errors, were scored out wide by CS Rugby and excellent conversions saw Medway go in 14-9 down at half-time.

After the restart, Medway’s hopes of a comeback were looking decidedly slim when a handling error in the visitor’s half gifted them the ball and another successful counter-attack saw Medway go further behind.

At this stage, the Kent club needed to cut out the errors and control the ball better - and did so.

The front row of Jack Nickalls, Bill Sandison and Maik Timmerman were starting to dominate while Max Easton, Jordan Stubbington and Dan O’Brien were getting the edge in the line-outs.

This set-piece platform, backed up with good ball carrying from Dan Huntley, Mo Pangarker, Antony Clement and Olly Newton, saw them maintain good field position.

And on 45 minutes, Medway clawed three points back through the boot of Bullock before the visitors lost a player to a yellow card shortly before the hour mark for their ever-increasing penalty count.

The resultant line-out saw a training ground move executed well as Alfie Orris scored under the posts, and Bullock added the conversion to cut the deficit to two points.

But Medway were themselves then reduced to 14 men when Bullock was sent to the sin-bin for playing the ball on the ground, with the resultant penalty putting CS Rugby 24-19 in front.

On 74 minutes, though, the pressure exerted by Medway’s set-piece game saw more dividends, with the away prop sin-binned for the remaining minutes of the game and the home side had their tails up.

Roared on by a large crowd, the home team opted for a five-metre scrum and drove for the line and an excellent effort by the forwards provided Stubbington the scoring opportunity. He showed excellent ball control to touch down and, despite the conversion going wide, the scores were now level at 24-24.

Medway were totally dominant now and, from the kick-off, they secured possession before they went through the phases.

CS Rugby looked to clear, however the kick was partially charged down by O’Brien for player-of-the-match Timmerman to gather the ball, where he broke two tackles to score the winning try.

It gives Medway a much-needed boost before they travel to unbeaten league leaders Westcombe Park this Saturday.