A late try by Adam Bishop earned Gravesend a deserved 17-13 victory away to North Walsham Vikings in their first outing in National League 3 on Saturday.

They had made a brisk start, when a well-struck penalty by Dave Dorton punished an offside at the breakdown after only three minutes, but were 10 points behind early in the second half.

The pace of Frost eventually set up a try for Couzens on the counter to give Walsham the lead at 5-3 and, three minutes from the interval, a well worked set catch and drive from a five metre line-out saw hooker McCall forced over to make it 10-3.

Within three minutes of the restart Vikings edged further ahead when fly-half Davies-Horne put over a penalty.

With less than 15 minutes to go, the fightback began when Gray went over wide on the left and Dorton’s huge kick from the touchline took the margin to 13-10.

Walsham’s second-row Reeves was shown a yellow card and a line-out on the right, won by Jamie Forsyth at the back, saw Gs set up another attack, and an overlap was created for Bishop to run in unopposed.

Dorton added the extra points and Gravesend held on comfortably for the last two minutes to give their first National League campaign a perfect start.