BRIGHTON arrived at Hamsey Green as league leaders and were relieved to still be there after a feisty battle in the winter sunshine.
A late try from Warlingham captain Zack King went unseen by the referee as the clock ticked towards the whistle and the chance to share the spoils went begging.
The fiery home team pack had put in a Herculean effort in the final quarter to pull Wars within a score of pacy Brighton, who persistently handled in the ruck to prevent progression.
Afterwards King admitted he was "frustrated" after coming agonisingly close to a result, but still immensely proud of his team's performance on the day.
"I can see why Brighton are beating teams – all they need is parity in the forwards because their back-line is pretty frightening," he said.
"But I was really pleased with the effort. It gives us a lot of confidence in some ways, but to be fair we have never been short on confidence. I know people say the league table never lies, but we feel it does for us.
"We truly believe we can beat anyone in this league and we showed that on Saturday. But if we have any aspirations for the top-four, we have to win [against Sevenoaks this weekend]."
Warlingham's early pressure put Brighton on the back foot, and when No 8 Tom Street emerged from a rolling maul the visitors had no answer to his pumping footwork, though Kozminski failed with the conversion.
The Brighton back line is renowned in this league as being a potent force and, after they took a quick penalty, the ball was shipped to the centre as they scored a comfortable, converted try under the posts.
Brighton soon followed up with a second converted try after some boiler-room pressure was exerted on the Wars line.
A man down, the Warlingham pack began to look wobbly in the second half and a desperate kick out of defence fell to the dangerous Brighton back line, their right winger outstripping the defence for an unconverted try in the corner.
Then from a scrappy melee on the half way line, Wimble emerged with the ball and scampered 50 metres to score Warlingham's second try, converted by fly-half Joe McEvoy.
Later McEvoy put in a booming 22 metre drop out deep into the Brighton territory and Warlingham sensed the opportunity to strike back again.
The hosts spent the final quarter camped on the visitors' line with Brighton determined to spoil any attack with cynical foul play, which gave Warlingham several penalties but no further cards, fouls or penalty tries.
In the final dramatic moments, despite every player – home and away together with a large band of spectators, – accepting that Zack King had carried the ball from the back of a maul to touch down after another series of sustained Warlingham pick-and-drives, the referee declined the score, instead awarding yet another penalty.
Next Saturday, hoping for better fortune, Warlingham travel to Sevenoaks for their last league game of 2012.
Warlingham: Abou-Zeid, J Delderfield, Scutt, L Delderfield, Fair, King, D Street, T Street, Murtagh, McEvoy, Wimble, Kozminski, Osborne, Skinner, Williams, Atkinson, Nunn, Ray.
Other result: Warlingham III 28, Old Reigatians III 19
