Maidenhead's ill-discipline proves costly in Papa John's Plate defeat to rivals Bracknell

Photo credit: Paul Morgan

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Maidenhead 17, Bracknell 47

David Mobbs-Smith felt Maidenhead’s ill-disciplined first half display against Bracknell on Saturday gave the team too much to do as they crashed out of the Papa John’s Regional Plate competition following a 47-17 defeat at Braywick Park.

Maidenhead finished the season in scintillating form at Braywick Park, winning their final five league matches dating back to a narrow 25-23 win over Bracknell back on January 11 - a run of results which saw them comfortably sure up their place in the Regional 1 South Central Division next season.

However, they left themselves with ‘too big of a mountain to climb’ on Saturday as their penalty count mounted up, gifting their opponents territory and try-scoring opportunities that their derby rivals gratefully accepted.

Having been outscored by four tries to one in the first half, Maidenhead continued to battle in the second half - for pride as much as anything - as Bracknell edged towards a comfortable victory.

However, the afternoon wasn’t a wasted exercise for head coach Mobbs-Smith who got to blood several of the club’s second team players who he expects will feature more prominently for the firsts next season.

“They outplayed us over the whole game really,” said Mobbs-Smith. “They got four tries in the first half really through our errors. We gave them the territory to play some catch and drives.

“They had a four try to one lead at half-time and that sort of cemented their victory really.

“They played really well considering they hadn’t beaten us yet this season. We were a bit disappointed as a team, but it gave us a chance to play a lot of the young guys as well.

“A lot of people were developing their game for future seasons. They kept playing to the end, it wasn’t a game of just folding. But Bracknell played really well.”

He added: “They may have had a few more key players playing for them, but not significantly so. It was their league side playing with a few exceptions. They just managed the game slightly better than us on the day. It was a good win for them really in the end.

“We just weren’t good enough at keeping them away from that area, mostly from our own ill-discipline, but they executed those moments well. We gave them those opportunities though.”

Mobbs-Smith was disappointed Maidenhead weren’t able to extend their season by a few weeks, and replicate their run to the final of this competition two weeks ago, but he has confidence in the quality of the players coming through the ranks at the club and believes they can go some way towards bridging the gap to the top five or six teams in their division next season.

“It was a different mindset for this competition,” he added. “We finished on a great run in the league. There was no lack of effort from the lads, but what we managed to achieve through the closing part of the season at home really helped us finish the season on a high. But we then had to lift ourselves again to play one of our big rivals.

“Those five wins in a row at home meant we finished seventh in the league, which is good when you consider where we were earlier in the season.

“We finished two points behind Bracknell and the teams above are at another level of expenditure to us. We were happy with where we finished in the league, but the cup game was a little bit disappointing on the scoreboard but not in the performance.

“The boys put in some gritty stuff. Even at 47-17, they were still playing hard at the end to prevent them getting 50 points. There was no lack of effort, it was just that we gave them an easy start because of our lack of discipline and then it was too big a mountain to chase after that.

“We try to win whatever version of the competition we were put into, so we’re disappointed to be out.

“We had Lucas Norton at nine, who is 18, he’s still at school. We had Ollie Pearce who has come through the youth section. He started at six.

“There’s new talent coming through that we were able to play. They were twos players this season but they won’t necessarily be twos players next season, so it was a great chance to see them in action.”