Sandwich Town skipper Tom Chapman expects visitors Bexley to be a much-strengthened force this weekend.

Town sit second-bottom, four points from safety, after they lost by five wickets at Canterbury on Saturday.

Bexley are sixth ahead of Saturday’s fixture at The Butts but there’s still a long way to go in the Kent League Premier Division this summer.

“We know the qualities that Bexley have amongst their team,” said Chapman. “I think they’re probably likely to get a few of their big names back this weekend, as well.

“Various different types of schools that boys are working at are finishing now. A lot of those boys might well be playing against us.

“We know what a tough game it can be against Bexley.

“We usually have pretty decent games down at our place against them - close games - so we’ll just gear-up and get ready for Saturday.”

Indeed, only 26 points separate basement boys Bickley Park from Blackheath, who are fourth.

“There’s still such a long way to go,” noted Chapman, whose team have won just two of eight league games this term.

“It’s still very close with the bottom five or even the bottom six, potentially.

“There’s 10 points between us and Canterbury but, if we go and win against Bexley on Saturday, we can jump up quite a few places.”

Half-centuries by Rory Smith (51) and Ben Chapman (50) during a 96-run second-wicket partnership steered Sandwich to a 50-over total of 209-8.

Canterbury were then led safely home with eight balls to spare despite wickets for Sri Lankan overseas spinner Roshan Jayatissa (2-35) and Harry Bee (2-56).

Chapman reflected: “It’s unfortunate at the moment, we’re just getting on the wrong-end of these results.

“We’re doing lots of good things but we’re just not quite putting it together fully to get ourselves over the line.

“Obviously, we built a good foundation at the start of the innings on Saturday through Ben and Rory getting 50s.

“But unfortunately, they both got out in quick succession which kind of altered the rest of the innings a little bit.

“We ended up getting to 210 in the end and thought that was a pretty decent score at the time. But we were probably just 20 or 30 runs short.”

Chapman was particularly pleased to see his brother Ben back among the runs, saying: “He’s probably not quite got the scores that he would have wanted this year.

“But, on Saturday, he showed what he is capable of and what he can do for our team.

“It was good to see.”

Seam bowler Bee took an early wicket in Canterbury’s innings and, although another solid display with the ball wasn’t enough, he has become a consistent performer.

Chapman explained: “We have changed him up a little bit here and there this year - he has opened the bowling sometimes and been the first change here and there, as well.

“He’s been bowling fantastically for us, picking up crucial wickets in pretty well most of the games he has played in. Harry has been superb.

“We actually bowled quite well. We just couldn’t get the little breaks that we needed.

“We got off to an absolute flier with Harry getting a wicket in the first over.

“Then, they just had a couple of good partnerships that we couldn’t quite break through.”

Sandwich Town 2nds were comprehensive Division 4 home victors against Holmesdale 2nds.

There were half-centuries for Jared Southgate (54), Matthew Carney (51) and Charlie Bell (50) during their 272 all out.

Southgate shone with 3-32 as Holmesdale were skittled for 129.