FUNGAI Mutepfa admitted the threat of South West One East relegation is real after Reading Abbey blew an 8-0 lead to lose 21-11 at home to Windsor, writes Richard Ashton.

It was a seventh defeat in nine games for the Rose Hill men and leaves them level on points with third-bottom Royal Wootton Bassett with just five games remaining.

The disappointed head coach confessed his side had only themselves to blame as they conceded three tries in the final half-four to be leapfrogged by their east Berkshire rivals.

Mutepfa told the Chronicle: “Windsor came here with a bigger desire than us and they were more committed than us – it was their desire which got them over the line, which is a horrible thing to say when you’re playing at home.

“They understand the dogfight they’re in and I’m not sure everyone of our guys did. It’s real now and we will need a response.”

He continued: “Windsor didn’t do anything exceptional, but they blew us away at the breakdown. That’s where you get measured – when you haven’t got the ball. They built themselves into the game by winning the collisions.

“You can’t guarantee you’re going to beat someone on the outside, or win every line-out, but you can guarantee that there will be collisions in rugby and we need to win those to give ourselves a chance to win the game.”

Abbey made a bright start and opened the try-scoring account inside the opening 10 minutes, wing Jules Greenaway crossing the whitewash. Ollie Walton missed the conversion, but landed a penalty shortly after, and his side led 8-0 at the end of a scrappy opening half.

They also began the second period the stronger, but lost their way once Ben Grant-Anderson and Neil Baggett went over for scores converted by Jack Gaylor.

And although Walton landed a penalty, an extraordinary rolling maul by the visitors – spanning at least 40 metres from a line-out – ended with Lawrence Hewitt touching down for Gaylor to convert.

Abbey had one final shot to bag a losing bonus point, but Walton’s effort with the last kick of the match drifted wide, leaving Mutepfa (pictured) frustrated at the turnaround.

He admitted: “The way we started the second half, if we’d carried that on and played in their 22, we would have forced them to commit more penalties. It was naive on our part and we’ve got to concentrate for 80 minutes.

“I wanted us to play territory, but we switched off and in a five to 10-minute period Windsor scored two tries. That was because we went against what we wanted to do. We started playing in our own half and we lost the ball on our own 10-metre line, they scored pretty much from there and their tails got up. We didn’t recover from that.”

Abbey were not helped by an injury to fly half Luke Burns as Windsor scored their first try, leading to a number of positional changes as Gavin Dampies moved to scrum half and Charlie Shackleford came onto the wing.

But Mutepfa said: “Losing Luke was a big blow, but injuries are part of rugby.

“I felt we deserved a losing bonus-point from the first 50 minutes, when we were in front, but the way they rallied we didn’t have an answer. A lot of our guys were a bit shell-shocked and took too long to get back into the game.”

Reading Abbey visit sixth-placed Banbury – who they lost to 18-10 earlier in the season – on Saturday, and Mutepfa concluded: “Banbury was one of our worst performances. We were disappointed so we’ve got to bring everything to the game next week.”

  • BERKSHIRE Shire Hall – who host Chipping Norton this coming Saturday – lost 17-10 to Wheatley.