Banbury blew the title for the second time and again it was poor kicking that cost them dear in Saturday's 19-18 defeat at Daventry.

They must now pick themselves up for a play-off at Midlands 3 East North runners-up Ilkeston tom- orrow.

Three weeks ago, Bulls had lost 11-10 to the final kick at Northampton Old Scouts when victory would have given them the title.

That defeat saw full back Pete Flemming miss a conversion from in front of the posts, and lightning struck twice when fly half Tony Hurst did the same at Daventry.

Indeed, such was Banbury's lack of confidence in front of goal that they consistently passed up very kickable penalty chances.

For all their ineptitude with the boot, the visitors outscored Daventry by three tries to one and did enough to win the game.

But their hosts dug in and in fly half Alex Rose, they had a kicker who showed Bulls how it should be done.

Rose punished Banbury with two penalties inside seven minutes, both after the visitors were caught offside.

Bulls have tried to play expansive rugby all season and showed this in patches, particularly before the break.

Winger Sean Allwood cut inside at pace and although he was stopped by a high tackle, lock Matt McNally was in support. His popped pass found hooker Rory Dymond, who dived over.

The try was just to the right of the posts, but Hurst hooked his conversion wide as Daventry rushed out.

Banbury then had their best spell of the game but could only add one try, a cracker from Allwood, to their score and could have slotted at least two penalties.

Daventry were 13-10 up at the break, however, after capitalising on Flemming's woeful 39th-minute drop-out with a converted try.

Banbury scored a third try through skipper Ed Cummings's 51st-minute pushover effort after some concerted pressure, but couldn't gain any breathing space.

Four minutes later, Rose slotted his third penalty, but the pendulum swung again when Flemming finally landed one for Banbury from close range.

Rose kicked his fourth penalty on 67 minutes to make it 19-18 and Bulls became increasingly frantic.

Player-coach Simon Purnell came on in search of a winning kick, but Bulls were left heart-broken at the end.

f=Helvetica s=5.7Banbury: Flemming, Daniels, Collett, Taylor, Allwood, Hurst, Davies (Purnell 74), Baker, Dymond, Gilbert, McNally, Shepley, Bannister (Clark 78), Wyatt (Brooks 68), Cummings (capt). Cards galore, but Henley hang on HENLEY Hawks recorded a 16-10 home victory over Blackheath despite being reduced to 13 men.

No 8 Dave Archer and flanker Matt Hulland were both sin-binned as Blackheath rallied from 16-3 down after the break.

But referee Glen O'Hara had the last word when he red-carded visiting hooker Rob Webber for swatting his opposite number Ian Gibbons and finally yellow-carded Henley lock Matt Payne.

Injuries deprived Blackheath of centre Will Wigram and full back Frankie Neale inside 20 minutes and by the time Neale was stretchered off, Henley were 10-3 up after winger Chris Simmons's tenth try of the season.

Mitch Burton added the conversion to go with his earlier penalty and then slotted two more penalties either side of the break and AJ Delport converted a second-half try from winger Roman Piotrowski, but James Gaunt kept Blackheath at bay with some clever kicking.

A TRY from Luke Rosier and a penalty from Simon Durnford could not stop Henley Wanderers losing 17-8 at Marlow in South West 2 East. South West 1 Hiscock bags four in Chinnor romp JAMIE Hiscock ran in four tries as champions Chinnor ended their season with a 68-13 victory at relegated Spartans.

The teenage winger was rewarded with a start after some valuable contributions in recent months and repaid his coach in style.

Chinnor spent the first 20 minutes on the back foot, before Hiscock notched their first two tries to open the floodgates.

Further tries followed from Rewi Tolich (2), Hiscock (2), James Hewitt, Darren Oxley (2) and Danny Burns while Hewitt had a near faultless game with the boot, converting nine of the ten tries.

Hosts Weston-super-Mare sunk Oxford Harlequins 33-10 with a late flurry.

Scrum half Antony Cope and fly half Ben Cottenden created early opportunities for centres Charlie Mawle and Andy Henley.

One of these almost brought a try for Henley, but resulted in an injury to full back Peter Yee.

Quins' lock Alex Dyer was yellow-carded in the 28th minute just before Weston took the lead with a try.

Cottenden kicked a penalty to make it 5-3 on 51 minutes and the game was finely balanced until Weston centre TJ Madamombe scored on the hour.

The next 15 minutes produced Weston tries from Alex Hughes, Madamombe and Luke Hember, with James Reid taking his conversion tally to four.

Quins lost Mawle with a serious shoulder injury, but scored the try of the game through Henley, which Cottenden converted. Southern Counties North Sevier sinks Chippy ROGER Sevier kicked Grove to a 30-28 victory over Chipping Norton at Cane Lane with a late long-range penalty.

It capped a fine day for the fly half, who landed two more penalties and converted tries by Clint Dearmer, Adam Hastings and Alan Awcock.

Witney, meanwhile, secured third spot after defeating Slough 38-0 with tries from James Lamb (2), Carl Strutt, Jem McIlveen, Henry Lamb and Carl Campbell. Tom Harper slotted four conversions. Bicester miss the boat BICESTER saw off Swindon College 54-24, but it was not enough to secure promotion, losing out to Milton Keynes, whose 51-5 victory over Farnham Royal saw them go up.

Steve Risbridger, Wayne Varney and Martin Linstrom scored first-half tries, James Barrett adding two conversions and three penalties.

In the second half, Bicester added tries via Dickie Walsh, John Rollason (2) and Tony Nighingale with Risbridger, Walsh and Dan Spencer adding conversions.

Littlemore recorded a shock 23-19 win at Gosford All Blacks thanks to tries by fly half Lawrence Harris (2) and Darryll Rendle, while Harris also kicked two penalties and a conversions.

Gosford's try scorers were Alex Webb, Harry Sutton and Nmandi Chinye. Charlie Sutton kicked two conversions.