ON a chilly evening, Tooting & Mitcham took this league encounter to Dartford, ambitious tactics which proved to be a big mistake.

Sure, they twisted the lion’s tail by going 2-0 up early in the first half, but this was a fatal error. With an away goal tally of 6-3 in five games, being two up against the leaders must have seemed sheer heaven to the Terrors.

The visitors did sparkle and took their chances well against a Dartford outfit just a mite off-key, except for the ebullient Ryan Hayes, who celebrated his 150th starting appearance for the club with a memorable display and a brace of goals to boot.

Tooting opened the scoring on 12 minutes when defender Jamie Byatt placed a low shot past Andrew Young and the advantage was doubled 12 minutes later when a dazzling run was rounded off with a brisk shot from striker Paul Vines.

Lion’s tail having been twisted, Darts came to life and it wasn’t surprising when wing maestro Hayes curved a trademark free-kick from out wide right round the visitors’ wall and past the lanky Dave King to halve the deficit.

Immediately after the restart, busy Lee Noble delivered an exquisite cross field pass from just inside his own half fully 50 yards diagonally to Hayes out right and the latter cut inside past a lone marker to beat King for the equaliser.

As ever, there was going to be only one winner and with 43 minutes still to do it.

King pulled off a brilliant reaction save on his line to keep Darts out on the hour, but it was Knut versus the tide time.

The Tooting keeper then made a fine low save to deny Danny Harris, but the dam was finally breached late on when substitute Rob Haworth was released for a one-on-one with King and the striker coolly planted the winner home.

Game, set and match.

Finally, a word about referee Steve Rubery, who controlled the game without any fuss and, remarkably in this day and age, felt no need to brandish yellow cards.

A good, sensible performance.

Dartford: Young, Burgess, Gross, Flanagan, Coyle, Beales, Hayes (Crouch 86), Harris, May (Haworth 68), Burns (Butchell 76), Noble. Subs not used: Dent, Kessell. Att: 871.