Title bid goes down to the wire

Published 10 Feb 2010 09:00 0 Comments

BRACKNELL Colts hunt for the OBB Division One title will go down to the last game of the season after they slipped to their first league defeat of 2009/10 on Sunday.

Martin Radford's side went down 8-6 against Henley. And that result, coupled with the withdrawal of Marlow from the league - which sees Bracknell stripped of the five points they earned against the Buckinghamshire side - has seen Henley leapfrog the DHL Colts into first place.

However Henley sit just two points ahead of Bracknell and, as they were due to finish with a trip to Marlow, have now completed all of their fixtures.

This means that a win for Bracknell in their OBB match against Newbury will be enough to see them lift the title.

Radford was disappointed with Sunday's display, but is confident his side are more than capable of bouncing back in style.

He said: "There is no need to panic. We made too many unforced errors and we failed to manage either the game or the referee with the same maturity that Henley showed. But this is a strong team and they now know exactly what they have to do."

Bracknell took quarter of an hour to get going on Sunday and by that stage they had already conceded the only try of the game.

Fly-half Sam Quelch released Ivan Greenway to score an unconverted effort.

Full-back Ben Blosse got Bracknell back in the game with a 14th minute penalty. This brought the Colts to life and man of the match Tim MacNaughton and Oli Nixon both went close to snatching a crucial try as Henley went in 5-3 to the good at half-time.

Blosse's second penalty did give Bracknell a 6-5 lead early in the second half. But this advantage was to last for less than a minute as they were penalised from the restart and Quelch kicked Henley back in front as the game finished 8-6.

"The players were up for it before the game," Radford added. "But they had a poor start and I could see the anxiousness creeping in.

"The pressure of these big games may be getting to them. It's a matter of maturity. You need to be able to dig in when things are not going well and manage the match.

"You also need to be able to communicate both with each other and the referee."

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