Wycombe take three-figure pasting on the chin (From Bucks Free Press)

High Wycombe dumbstruck by 117-point thrashing

10:24am Monday 24th September 2012 in Local Sport By Alan Feldberg

HIGH Wycombe RFC were hoping for leniency on Saturday, instead they were the victims of a severe and brutal beating the likes of which many of their players won’t have known before.

They lined up against Bracknell in front of their own fans at Kingsmead, but that was the only time they had parity as the visitors decimated them in a 117-0 pasting.

Wycombe head coach Dave Roberts said: “I hope this hurts the players’ pride. If it hurts their pride they’ll come back determined to restore it.

“I don’t think it will affect their confidence though because Bracknell were so far ahead of us.

“We were hoping to keep it to 50 points, but they’re a league above us, at least.”

Wycombe have now lost all four of their South West 1 East league matches this season, although before Saturday they had been moving in the right direction with the margins of their defeats coming down from 56 to 29 to six points.

Bracknell emphatically reversed that sequence though.

Roberts said: “Bracknell are a class apart.

“They managed to keep all their squad from last season together and are heading towards being semi-professional – if they’re not already.

“They’re a very strong unit with some quality players, and there’s no doubt they’ll bounce straight back up.

“I don’t think we had possession for more than about 15 minutes all game. We had about 65-70 minutes of defending and you’re going to succumb to pressure like that.

“Did we defend as well as we could? Probably not. Did we make our individual tackles? Probably not. Did we keep going in the circumstances? Probably not.

“But there is very little you can say to the players after a game like that. There is very little you can take out of it.”

The only good thing for Wycombe is that they don’t meet Bracknell again until 2013.

Their next two matches are both at home and both against teams they beat last season – Cheltenham and Coney Hill.

Roberts said: “We’ve got two home games now and they’re both must-wins.

“We need to start winning. If we go another two or three weeks without a win we’ll have some serious problems.”