THE essence of cup football is to win and Dartford accomplished this comfortably enough in a Halloween Trophy tie against Chipstead without getting out of first gear.

Darts were asked to kick to the Academy End with a low, slanting sun behind them and were the first to threaten with Ryan Hayes unravelling his full repertoire of tricks which included a testing free-kick early on, which was headed over.

At the other end Darts’ rearguard went through training ground-type build up routines with the midfield delivering a variety of balls for the front runners.

In the visitors’ half there seemed to be two events to hold the attention, the first a series of saves from keeper Dean Rose, whose antics brought back memories of the famed Maurice Munden in his Dover days.

The other was what appeared to be a rather alien interpretation of the offside law, which negated many a Dartford raid.

Chipstead had their moments with Ray Freeman, wide on the left, the main threat.

At the start of the first half the visitors might have taken a surprising lead but were thwarted by an agile save from Andrew Young low down at his left post.

Darts upped the pace in the second half and duly went ahead on 52 minutes when Jamie Day buried a hasty clearance of a Jay May effort as it was crossing the line.

Gradually upping the pressure, Darts made a couple of tactical changes which saw the tie settled.

A swift move along the right flank on 76 minutes ended with Danny Harris turning home a low cross from the right.

The scoring was completed when a dazzling move and easily the best piece of football on the day ended with Danny Crouch feeding Hayes who swept a shot low into the corner of the Chipstead goal.

It was a fitting result for the Darts and, in particular, skipper Adam Flanagan on his 100th starting appearance for the club.

Dartford: Young, Burns (Heferman 80), Gross, Flanagan, Coyle, White, Hayes, Day (Crouch 79), May (Beadles 70), Harris, Noble. Subs not used: Dent, Kessell. Att: 1,002.