ROYAL Wootton Bassett held their nerve on Saturday to clinch the Southern Counties South title with a 44-12 win away to Frome.

At the final whistle Alan Low’s side were unsure if that was enough to clinch the league, with one game remaining, but as they sat enjoying beers on the pitch with the hosts the news came through that Devizes had done them a favour by beating second-placed Midsomer Norton 32-14 to hand them the crown.

“It takes all the pressure off the weekend (they host Marlborough) and it doesn’t become a one-game race,” said Low.

“It was a pleasant surprise. We were actually having some beers out on the pitch with the Frome boys, they asked us to stay out after the game to reciprocate what we did with them at our place before Christmas.

“Somebody came out and said that Devizes had beaten Midsomer Norton so it was job done on Saturday afternoon.

“It was fantastic to seal the league with a week to go but the general consensus among the boys was that we have one more week to go before a full celebration, which was nice to hear from my point of view.

“I think this shows how hard, as a squad from the third team through to the firsts, they have worked this season. The boys now want to make sure we finish in style next weekend.”

Bassett were able to shake off any early nerves to secure a bonus-point victory with hooker Phil Bardwell and Colts A player Elye Darragh coming in for special praise from Low.

“Frome was the final one of that bottom group of teams and we hadn’t performed as well as we knew we could have done in previous weeks and I think that was because of the pressure,” he added.

“Frome have been very strong at home since Christmas and we saw it as a potential banana skin. We approached the game slightly differently and the first restart we had an unforced error and us coaches just stood back and thought it was going to be another one of those days.

“From there we built and played some of the best rugby we have played this year, some of the phases we put together were absolutely superb.”