SALISBURY Rugby Club's magnificent season ended in disappointment as they missed out on promotion, beaten in the play-off final by Western section runners-up Barnstaple.

Coming off the back of a magnificent 16-game winning run, Salisbury, having clinched second place in South West Division Two (East), went into the game with high hopes.

Having long set their sights on finishing in the league's one and only play-off place, it was a day of reckoning for the Castle Road side.

A coach-load of enthusiastic supporters made the journey to north Devon to cheer their heroes on, Barnstaple having squeaked home advantage by virtue of points difference.

With the hosts' ground packed with Barnstaple fans, expectation was sky-high.

Initially, the burden seemed to weigh heavier on Barnstaple, the Salisbury back-line looking by far the livelier of the two, displaying some excellent ball-handling skills.

However, the first points of the afternoon went to the hosts, Josh Squire successfully kicking a penalty with 28 minutes gone.

Keeping their cool, Salisbury continued with their patient build-up play and were themselves rewarded with a penaltyon the stroke of half-time to send the sides in level.

Re-emerging with everything to play for, Salisbury again made the better start.

In a matter of minutes, they took the lead, skipper Dave Bell kicking a penalty from a wide position.

Galvanised by falling behind, Barnstaple's forwards upped the tempo.

Eventually, after sustained pressure, they opted to take a scrum from a penalty and were awarded a penalty try, which was successfully converted.

While Salisbury were still reeling from the blow, things went from bad to worse.

Their highly influential skipper suffered a recurrence of an old shoulder injury and was forced to play no further part in the proceedings.

Barnstaple's tails were now up and, in the 80th minute, they put the game out of sight.

Their scrum half broke from a ruck and burst through the Salisbury defence, Josh Squire stepping up to add the conversion points to leave the final score a deceptively comfortable 17-6 to the Devonians.

The captain said: "It's a huge disappointment not to be playing in South West Division One next season, but I think we were more in the game than we realised at the time.

"Barnstaple were strong in defence and they were a stone a man heavier across the pitch, which told on us in the last quarter, which is when things really started to turn in their favour.

"We didn't take our chances in the first half, when we had the breeze at our backs.

"In retrospect, taking just one or two of those chances might have been enough because, for most of the 80 minutes, it was a very even game."

Despite the disappointment on the day, Bell concedes that the day still gave Salisbury plenty of memories to look back on with pride.

He said: "I understand it was a good spectacle to watch from the sidelines and the supporters who came down with us were fantastic.

"There was a great atmosphere.

"Barnstaple say there were more than 1,000 people there and, although Salisbury may have been a quarter of the crowd, they were easily as vocal as the opposition, which really made a difference."

3:03pm Wednesday 30th April 2008

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