The East Kent side were relegated from the league above at the end of last season and intend their stay in London League Three to be temporary and bounce back immediately.

In what is starting to become a worrying pattern, Horsham fell away again in the final quarter having built up a lead, but whilst in previous weeks the Green and Whites have just managed to hang on, this time the margin of lead was insufficient and Horsham found they had nothing left in the tank.

Horsham withstood the early storm from Thanet Wanderers when having young flanker Jeff Carvell sin binned on his first team debut for supposedly making a dangerous tackle after five minutes.

Will Bell continued his metronomic kicking and at half time had put Horsham into a 9-6 lead which was extended on 45 minutes when Adam Day stormed up the blind side with a 30 yard run to off load in the tackle to Jonathan Whiting in support to score.

But inexplicably Horsham started to ease off and stop making first up tackles, and Thanet Wanderers scored four tries without reply on 52, 60, 71 and 76 minutes.

Horsham coach Nick Stocker said: “I thought the first phase went quite well, we had control of the scrum and in the line-out we secured good ball.

What they had was lots of possession. They were well-drilled and played to a simple pattern using their big runners and we were starved of the ball. We poorly used the little possession that we had, did not build any continuity and did not set up our strike runners.

We fell off tackles in the last 30 minutes and I have to question the fitness of some of our players. All in all it was a bad day at the office for us.”

Horsham’s next game is in the cup away to Bromley on Saturday October 26.

Horsham: Talbot, Grantham-Hill, Day (Penfold 65); Grover, Clarke; Smith, Carvell (Crook 45), Jonathan Whiting; W Bell, Goodsir; Gibbs, Brown, Ordidge, James Whiting (Taylor 60); S Bell