High Wycombe were crowned league champions on Saturday after a 17-7 triumph against Thatcham secured the Southern Counties North title.

A try from scrum half Lewis Davenport and a penalty try, both of which were converted by Joe Openshaw, gave the visitors a commanding 14-0 lead at the break before Openshaw extended their advantage with a penalty in the second half.

The hosts hit back with a converted try of their own but they failed to make any more inroads into Wycombe’s lead despite Jacob Palmer and Craig Murray both spending time in the sin bin during the final 15 minutes.

Head coach Mark Barry said: “All we needed from the game was a point but it spoke volumes for the players, and everyone at the club this year, that we put that to one side and we just wanted to win.

“It was a bit sweaty for the last couple of minutes but, with hindsight, it shows you how competitive we’ve become over the season.

“We wanted to win the game although, mathematically, we could have lost the game or drawn it and still won the league with the points that we had accrued as all we needed was one point.

“It shows you that it was every man on deck with 13 players trying to defend our line. It was a great achievement for the boys.”

Having lost two of their opening three league matches Wycombe were defeated just once more in the 18 games that followed, winning 17 of them.

Saturday’s victory meant Barry’s men wrapped up the title with a game to spare, and the head coach revealed topping the table had exceeded their pre-season expectations.

“We had a meeting with all the players at the beginning of the season and asked what their realistic ambitions were and they just wanted to do better than last year,” he said.

“Last year they came fourth so we were trying to come second or third this season. Everyone wants to push for promotion, and in this league I honestly believe that out of the 12 teams in the league seven or eight of them could push for promotion. There’s not a lot between the sides it was just our year this year.”

Barry refused to single anyone in the team out for special praise and instead insisted that the whole club should take credit for what has been achieved this season.

He said: “There’s been a lot of work that’s gone on behind the scenes with the first team manager helping me out, the youth team section helping me out with players, speaking to players and getting everyone down to training.

“It’s been a real club effort this year and I don’t think anybody deserves any more praise than anyone else. It’s been a huge all round effort.”

Promotion will see Wycombe take on the likes of Windsor, Maidenhead and Swindon in the South West 1 East division next season, but for now Barry is keen to enjoy their success ahead of the season finale against Marlow on April 18.

“Hopefully we can keep hold of the majority of the squad that we’ve got and try to add to it because it’s a better league with better teams and we need to perform better,” he said.

“At the moment everyone is very, very happy with the win and what we’ve done. It’s a real boost for the club. Everyone wanted it and when we got to about five or six games to go people started to go ‘we might actually do this’ and started believing in themselves.

“We beat Thatcham, we’ve beaten a lot of clubs both home and away and we’ve got one more game to go. They are local rivals and we want to really try and finish the season on a high and finish off with a win.”