Milton Keynes smash Alchester in a much needed bonus point win!

The 1st team at home to Alchester with a much needed win, stripped of 2nd place by the RFU Competition rules. Team in mourning!

A special day for Milton Keynes with the possibility of beating Windsor to second place in the league and therefore setting up a play off situation with the second placed club from Southern Counties South.

After all the drama of the game and the result critical to the Milton Keynes the result was in the hands of league leaders Beaconsfield playing away at Windsor. The result was both Milton Keynes and Windsor getting maximum points and the home side rattling up a great score, just beating Windsor by one solitary point difference, therefore assuming second place.

The day was to end in bitter disappointment when the Southern Counties North secretary gave Milton Keynes verbally the news that the rule of deducting points from any side that failed to meet their obligation in honouring a league game was applied, which meant that the week before when Marlborough failed to play against Windsor that had no chance of adding points difference to their tally, so the outcome of taking out Milton Keynes points being 66 + 50= 116, and Windsor`s points of 70 were removed, the points were too far away from Milton Keynes to close the gap, so the chance of a great result on the day was cruelly taken away.

The game itself was full of drama with Milton Keynes leaving it late to make it to produce the magic 4th try and bonus point.

Milton Keynes playing up field made great head way, the forwards working their way to the Alchester line and it was only 6 minutes in when Rob Lasbrey spurted through to score, Phil Powell missed the conversion and from the restart, Alchester showing that they were not to be pushed around kicked long, down field, and forced a scrum 5 metres out, Milton Keynes held firm and an anxious period of play managed to clear to the centre of the field.

It was on the half hour before Milton Keynes managed to force the issue once again, and war horse Stuart Tomkinson powered over the line, Phil Powell converted and Milton Keynes looked a little more comfortable with a 12 point lead.

It only took 3 more minutes when the forwards were on the attack again, this time and after some clever inter-passing normally seen by the three quarters saw Darren Brodrick cross the line to score, Phil Powell on target again. 3 minutes from time and a flare up in the forwards saw Iain Talbot yellow carded. Alchester took advantage of having the extra man and worked hard on the defence line, but the home side held firm and went to the break 19 points to the good.

Alchester now playing up field took the game to the City players, Dan Rolfe almost broke down the wing but had his foot just in touch, another couple of chances went begging as the anxiety was starting to show on the faces of the Milton Keynes players, trying too hard to achieve the vital 4th try.

It finally came on 67 minutes when Dan Rolfe finally scored in the corner. The conversion missed, but you could see the relief as the 4th try was finally scored.

The game then went into all Milton Keynes with another tackle breaking try under the posts by Scott Aspinall, Phil Powell added the 2 points and the score pushed on the 31—0.

Milton Keynes had one final score to add when Dan Rolfe scored his second try and great conversion from Phil Powell finished the day at Milton Keynes 38, Alchester 0.

The news from the Windsor v Beaconsfield came through on the mobile phone where it was confirmed that Windsor had also scored 4 tries, but the tally of points for and against were already calculated by the team as they left the field and it was confirmed that Milton Keynes had pulled of the game with the one point advantage.

It was later in the evening when the news about the point`s withdrawal system was to be enforced. The coaches and senior committee members were always aware of this ruling but nobody realised what a savage impact it would have on this final league game on the season 2011/2012
John Silk.