Rugby round-up: Windsor's hopes of catching Oxford Harlequins dashed by Bletchley defeat

Windsor's chance of catching, and potentially pipping, Oxford Harlequins 2nds for the Counties 1 Tribute Southern North title went up in a puff of smoke on Saturday when Andy Symons' side were beaten 19-17 by Bletchley.

Windsor had been hoping to run Quins as close as possible for this season's title - after getting the better of them 22-17 a few weeks ago during a 12-match winning streak in the league.

Those 12 victories had left the side just five points behind Quins in the race for this season's title and, while it seemed unlikely the leaders would slip up against anyone else but Windsor, they had just nudged open that possibility in the final weeks of the season.

However, Saturday’s narrow and unexpected away defeat to the side sitting fourth in the table all but ends those hopes. Quins are not going to lose two of their remaining three matches at this level and will now go on and take the title.

That was likely to be the case anyway, however, Saturday's defeat could also be damaging to Windsor's prospects of claiming promotion as one of the best runners up for this level in the region.

They missed out on that by the skin of their teeth last season and defeats such as the one they suffered this weekend won't help their cause. Promotion was their stated aim at the start of the season.

They now have three games left to try and finish the season with as many points as they can, starting at home to third placed Chinnor 3rds this Saturday (March 8). They then round off their campaign with matches at Wallingford on March 22 and home to Reading Abbey on April 5.

W Marlow suffered their fifth league defeat in a row on Saturday as they went down to a 55-26 defeat at Grasshoppers.

Marlow have struggled for form of late after a brighter spell saw them win five games in six from late November into the new year.

Their recent poor results have seen the team drop to ninth in the table, now just three points above 10th placed Aylesbury, however, there is little danger they'll be caught by either of the bottom two, Hemel Hempstead or Old Haberdashers who are 14 and 16 points behind them respectively.

In contrast, Marlow had beaten Grasshoppers 41-36 in a thrilling game when the sides met at Riverwoods back in November, the game which launched their purple patch of the season.

Still, they'd have been hoping for much better results over the past five matches and will be hoping they can reverse the current trend in their final three games against London Irish Wild Geese at home (this Saturday), Teddington away (March 22) and home to Old Priorians on April 5.