Away day blues return as Maids suffer surprise Shield exit to Westcliff
Maidenhead suffered a surprise exit from the Papa John's Cup Shield on Saturday as they were beaten 29-24 away by Westcliff after conceding three tries in the final 12 minutes.
David Mobbs-Smith's side looked to have a measure of control over their hosts as the game wore on, but they allowed Westcliff to build momentum in the closing stages and the home side took victory with a try from one of the very last plays of the game.
The defeat was harsh on Maids, who'd given an awful lot to the game, however, their away form has been an issue all season and Mobbs-Smith said afterwards that this result 'kind of summed up our season'.
Having finished their Regional 1 South West campaign relatively strongly to ward off any threat of relegation, Maids would have headed to Westcliff confident of advancing to the latter rounds of the competition.
With Bournemouth and Hertford having pulled out of the competition, this game became a straight shoot-out for a place in the final four of the Shield, and Westcliff went into the clash having finished bottom of their Regional 1 South East division and been relegated to the level below.
Maids were without their electric winger Alex Turton for the trip, but it looked like they might not miss him too much when his replacement Tom Coomber scored twice in the first half. Maids continued to have the edge right through until the final 15 minutes when a late surge of pressure from the hosts resulted in three tries.
They now progress to the final four where they'll likely meet either Stoke or Bedford for a place in the final.
Reflecting on the game, and Maids' issues on the road all season, Mobbs-Smith said: “They played well, and at home they have a slight advantage. We had our chances. We were leading 10-3 in the first half. Tom Coomber the young colt was on the wing instead of Turton and he scored two tries.
“We were on top, but we just lost some momentum in the game, and they managed to go in at 10-10.
“In the next 10-15 minutes we scored another two tries to be 10 points up, but we managed to lose it at the end of the game.
“There were three minutes left and they managed to score again to take the game 29-24. They scored three tries in the last 12 minutes to win the game, which pretty much sums up our season.
“With four minutes to go, we were winning 24-17 and we couldn’t hold out. It's disappointing from that point of view because we'd been in the lead for the whole game until those last three minutes.
“They put a lot of pressure on us. They had big ball carriers and we just dropped off a few tackles. But it was not too dissimilar to the Brighton game. No one was thinking we were going to lose, and then a minute or two later, we had. That was the disappointing part, but in a way, it will help us. There's nothing like that kind of hurt to get you better as a young team going forward. We just played too adventurous in our own half and that allowed them back into the game.”
Westcliff posed different threats to most of the sides Maids have faced this season, but it's the side's inability to grind out results away from Braywick Park that will be of most concern to the head coach. They've won just once away from home all season, a 26-22 win at Marlborough, and that's what's really prevented them from finishing higher in the league this season. It's something Mobbs-Smith will be working hard to address over the summer months before the team's return to competitive action.
“I need to find some solutions, personnel wise and tactically to change our away form. Unless you're the best side in the league, you don't expect to win all your away games, but you'd like to win a third of them and then you're mid-table or higher.”