Martyn Rooney rounded off his great Commonwealth Games adventure at the MCG stadium in Melbourne on Sunday by anchoring the men's 4x400m relay team into fourth place.

The 18-year-old Croydon Harriers athlete became one of the few English success stories on the track at the games, despite twice narrowly missing out on a medal.

Rooney recorded two personal bests for the 400m in the lead up to the individual final where he was drawn in lane three.

The long-legged youngster was well in contention with the field down the back straight before tensing slightly around the final turn.

But he made up ground down the final straight with some powerful and focused running to pass two rivals and finish close to the medals in fifth place in a time of 45.51 his second fastest ever.

After putting his medal disappointment behind him, Rooney ran the fastest leg of England's 4x400m relay semi-final to put his country in the final with a third place finish.

The Croydon runner earned a well deserved anchor leg in the final which saw Rooney straining every muscle to make up lost ground on several rivals, including the strengthened Australians.

He was forced to run wide round the last bend and was closing fast at the line taking England to fourth just 0.07 out of the medals.

To add to the relay side's disappointment they were later disqualified but after a protest they were reinstated in fourth place.

Croydon Harriers' other representative at the games, Donna Fraser, suffered injury heartache. The veteran runner withdrew from her individual 400m medal assault with a sore Achilles and although she hoped to run in the relay, she pulled out.

Without Fraser, England's 4x400m relay team went on to win gold but were later disqualified and this time the result stood.

Meanwhile there was better news on the track for fellow Croydon-based runner Natasha Danvers-Smith.

Danvers-Smith collected a sliver medal in the 400m hurdles in a time of 55.17 to make up for her games disappointment four years ago when she fell at the final hurdle while in third place.

Danvers-Smith said: "I'm happy to have won a medal.

"A lot of people said it couldn't be done. They said I was 28 and washed up. They said that I'd had a baby and they wrote me off. I've proved that I can do it."

Croydon boxer David Langley missed out on a Commonwealth gold medal for the second successive games after losing to Namibian fighter Jafet Uutoni.

The light flyweight out scored Uutoni in the first round 8-4 but the strong Namibian came out throwing big punches in round two to take a slender 12-14 lead. He then stretched the lead 18-27 in the third round and made sure of the title with another strong round to win 24-37.

Langley could not hide his disappointment after the fight.

"I've waited for this moment for four years and I really thought the gold medal had my name on it," he said. "I wanted the gold so much, but it just wasn't to be."