Five minutes of madness at the end of the first half cost Beaconsfield dear as a 27-23 defeat to Wallingford sucked them closer to a relegation scrap.

With 35 minutes played the Beacons were sitting pretty with an 11-point lead as they looked to avoid a third straight league defeat.

But, much to coach Simon Tattersall’s amazement, Beaconsfield ended the half trailing after a series of errors contrived to hand the home side an unlikely route back into the match.

“We had five minutes which just cost us completely,” said Tattersall. “We were 14-3 up with five minutes to go until half-time and then we made three silly mistakes which led to one try, and then we kicked off and they scored again.

“All of a sudden at half-time we were 15-14 behind and that was a killer really. From there they had such momentum but even then we did ok.

“We got ourselves a six point lead again and we threw that lead away as well. There was a lot of frustration afterwards.”

The narrow nature of the weekend’s defeat is nothing new to Beaconsfield with the club having already accrued four losing bonus points this season.

It was also the team’s fourth defeat in five league outings and Tattersall believes his team are now embroiled in the relegation scrap.

“It was quite bewildering to go in at half-time losing from that position. Hopefully it’s taught the guys a lesson that you just can’t switch off, particularly at those key times.

“I think it’s now four or five losing bonus points and it shows you that there are positive aspects to it but we have to learn as a side that when the game is there to kill off we need to do that.

“If they won they were one point behind us in the league table all of a sudden, and that’s what happened.

“The upshot is that it sucks us into a relegation battle now. We can either look at that as a negative or it’s going to sharpen our minds after we come back from the Christmas break.”

Tattersall and his troops now have couple of weeks off to recharge their batteries before they recommence league action on January 10 against bottom of the table Alchester.