THE honours were shared as north Kent neighbours Dartford and Ebbsfleet drew yesterday evening.

Mark Twain once called golf ‘a good walk spoilt’ but Tuesday’s fare at Princes Park was, in some ways, ‘a good match spoilt’, although it was difficult to put a finger on the precise reason.

Certainly overnight rain made for humid conditions.

With the likes of Paul Lorraine, Ben May and Billy Bricknell starting, and Preston Edwards on the bench, Fleet were no mugs.

Saturday at Bromley was a game of two halves for Darts, while on the same afternoon Fleet encountered G3 for the first time at the Maidstone’s Gallagher Stadium, where they lost 3-0.

Back on grass, they found that the ball ran true and measured passes usually found their intended destination.

The team-sheet showed a familiar-looking Dartford, which certainly looked for the first time like a possible starting line-up with many regular names included.

In addition to last season’s side, keeper Alan Julian and the ex-Chelmsford pair of Kenny Clark and Max Cornhill have bedded in nicely.

Certainly Darts started brightly enough with five regulars from last season on show.

We know what Lee Burns, Lee Noble, Ryan Hayes, Elliot Bradbrook and Danny Harris are capable of and the evening showed they still had it, doubled in spades.

Dartford certainly had the edge in the first period and with a modicum of luck could have ended the half 4-0 up.

But four times shots hit the inside of the post and four times the ball rebounded out.

Sod's Law demanded on the only occasion all evening the visitors hit the inside of the Dartford post it bounced in, Billy Bricknell the deliverer of Ebbsfleet’s opener 50 minutes.

For a while afterwards the game assumed the appearance of the derby games of yesteryear.

At one stage late on the referee was judicious enough to indicate a substitution should take place to avoid a red card being shown.

But with four minutes left on the clock the old firm of Hayes and Bradbrook combined to fashion a deserved Dartford equaliser from Bradbrook.

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Dartford: Julian, Burns, Fry, Sterling (Rogers 73), Clark, Noble, Hayes, Cornhill, Prior, Bradbrook, Harris (Ibemere 71).

Ebbsfleet: Hall, Sankofa, Howe, Long, Lorraine (Corcoran 77), Huke, Cook (Fakinos 83), Phipp,May, Bricknell (Johnson-Cole 72), Green. Att: 704