Prime continued their pre-season by hosting Canterbury Monument's first ever game at Colebrook.

The visitors are managed by Paul Keighley - a friend of Prime boss Goldsmith from University. His resemblance to Max Branning was quickly spotted by Prime's 16-man squad.

Prime welcomed back Greg Mazurkiewicz, Rich Excell and Phil Chapman to their squad but were without the injured Alun Williams and the absent Jan Nowak.

The game was in doubt due to heavy rain all morning, but the pitch held up to stand-in ref Goldsmith's in-depth pitch inspection.

Prime kicked off down the slope just as the rain relented and were immediately forcing Monument back into their own third of the pitch - but their keeper kept the sides level with a couple of fine saves.

Fitzgerald and Abu were linking up well and Sykes looked a threat down the left.

As the heavens opened again, Prime took the lead in bizarre circumstances when Kerton's long clearance bounced mid-way inside the Monument half and the keeper mis-read the bounce and the ball skipped off the wet surface and over his head into the net.

The goal seemed to spark the visitors into life and they went close when their central-midfielder shot narrowly over Kerton's crossbar from way out on the right-wing.

They equalised just before half-time when a long throw was nodded home at the near post by their skipper who beat Mazurkiewicz to the ball.

The sides retreated to the safety of the dressing rooms at half-time as the monsoon continued outside! Goldsmith implored his troops to keep passing the ball and avoid the long balls forward which were just skipping on out of play.

But it was the Canterbury side who took the lead 5 minutes into the half when Turvey's underhit back-pass was latched onto by skipper Budge again, and he dinked the ball over Kerton.

Prime responded by pressurising the home side with Chapman providing some teasing crosses from the left.

The closest Prime came to equalising was through Sykes who got across his man at the near post, but his hooked effort skimmed the crossbar.

Prime continued to ring the changes, with all subbed players coming back on - but it was Monument who added a third when a through-ball skidded past Mazurkiewicz and their winger lobbed the helpless Kerton.

All in all it was a disappointing performance from The Numbers, but all players have another hour in their legs ahead of next Saturday's final friendly against old rivals AFC Valour - hopefully the rain will relent by then!