Wimbledon’s first visit to Kent side Old Elthamians ended in a hard-earned 17-9 victory in London One on Saturday.

After a week off, Wimbledon’s quick-thinking saw then take a 23rd-minute lead.

A tapped penalty by scrum-half Alex Pyes put right wing Ben Sykes through and he scored despite scrambling defence. Johnny Rawlinson’s conversion made it 7-0.

Almost immediately home fly-half Raynor reduced the arrears with a penalty, but Wimbledon deserved their 7-3 half-time lead.

The gap was narrowed further three minutes after the restart, Raynor making no mistake after Wimbledon had been caught offside in front of the posts.

Elthamians’ line-out domination made Wimbledon’s decisions to kick difficult to understand, although their execution was generally good.

Flanker Jason Anquetil and Chris Lewis, who are approaching full match fitness, seemed to be involved in every move while, to combat the Elthamians line-out Wimbledon replaced number eight Mal English at half time with the taller Julian Callanan.

By cutting their numbers in the line-out were able to start winning ball in this phase.

Despite this, a period of pressure by Elthamians at 51 minutes gave Raynor a snap drop-goal chance and he took the score to 9-7.

Wimbledon scored their second try after 70 minutes.

Rawlinson, prop Dave Howell and several other players sent Wimbledon’s captain Dave Charles in for a try with an awkward conversion to follow from Rawlinson.

He made no mistake to give the Dons a 14-9 advantage.

The Elthamians heads dropped and, after 75 minutes and with their forwards closing the gap in the line-out, Rawlinson made no mistake with the penalty and this put the result beyond doubt at 17 – 9.

Wimbledon host second-placed Dover this Saturday (2.30pm).