Wimbledon's hopes of building on the previous weekend's victory over Guildford were dashed as they went down 21-7 at fourth placed Maidstone in London Two South on Saturday.

As in the home fixture last September they found a strong pack against them and backs who could take the ball at pace.

Maidstone opened the scoring with a well worked try firstly from a strong run by their right wing Nick van Mol after he had been gifted a poorly placed kick, after the ball had gone through several hands, hooker Davis scored and the conversion came from outside half Francis.

But Wimbledon scored themselves rapidly after a sniping run from scrum half Alex Pyes, followed by a diagonal run from left wing Jonny Rawlinson finished off by full back Dan South, outside half Mike Wilde converted.

Wimbledon's forwards were also getting the measure of the opposition and were starting to dominate and get possession, especially from the line-out, but as so far all season it was slow and without the quality of Maidstone's possession.

Just before half time Maidstone's captain Arnold at full back scored again after strong running by their backs. The conversion was straight forward and a half time lead of 14-7 was a fair reward for first use of a wind advantage.

In the second half, Wimbledon took every opportunity to run the ball with their possession but often went into effective Maidstone defence.

Some erratic refereeing especially of high tackles was also not penalised as it should have been, Wimbledon's best player on the day, hooker Oli Sheer being on the end of several as he ran loose possession at the opposition.

A final disappointment was a try at the end again by Arnold with the conversion as before and this made for a somewhat wider victory at 21-7 than should have been the case following the possession that Wimbledon had gained throughout.

Wimbledon's next League match will be away at Tunbridge Wells on March 2 (2.30pm).