Mark Barry hailed the “amazing” achievements of his High Wycombe players as they capped a title winning season with a final day 23-20 triumph against local rivals Marlow.

The Kingsmead outfit were assured of top spot in the Southern Counties North before Saturday’s game and they conjured up their 19th league win of the season to finish eight points clear of Aylesbury.

Head coach Barry felt the fact they came up against a local rival in their final outing – a team who had beaten them twice previously this season – helped motivate his side to end on a high.

“It was nice to have something to play for in a local derby with bragging rights and pride, so that focussed the players,” he said.

“We didn’t really focus on the fact that they’d beaten us this season it was just a case of we had beaten everyone in the league, apart from Wootton Bassett, and it was a case of ‘this lot are the only team we haven’t beaten let’s have a crack at it’.

“Sometimes if you’ve already won the league by your last league game there’s no real focus and it can peter out a little bit. The fact that it was Marlow certainly added a bit of spice to proceedings.”

The visitors fell behind to a Stephen Philpot try after ten minutes before they rallied through two Nick Carvey penalties and a converted Matt Saunders score to take a 13-8 half-time lead.

Barry said he urged his players to up their game in the second half and they heeded those calls as a try and penalty from Matt Wardle and a score from Lewis Davenport put them 23-13 up with 70 minutes on the clock.

Connor McKillop’s last minute try, which was converted by Carvey, gave Marlow a losing bonus point, but it wasn’t enough to spoil Wycombe’s title celebrations.

Barry said: “In all competitions we’ve only lost five games all season – three in the league and two cup games. To lose five games in an entire season is amazing and it’s a great achievement, especially with a very inconsistent side.

“We’ve had a lot of players in; I think we’ve used nearly 60 players in the first team alone so it’s been a really impressive achievement by the club.

“Ian Isham, the club captain, was fantastic all season and he played every single minute of every single league game. He was a huge bonus for us and people like that really stood up for us in what was a massive club effort.”

The loss capped a miserable campaign on the road for Marlow, who lost ten of 11 away matches as they finished seventh in the table.

Richard Kinsey’s men had a home record which was bettered only by the champions, who have already started planning for life in a higher division.

“Once we actually got promotion myself and members of the committee got the chance to talk about what are aspirations are and where we would like to go and what we have to implement to be successful at the next level.

“The wheels are in motion now and over the next few weeks we will formulate a plan and have a decent go at it next season.”