Buzzards’ promotion hopes suffered a potentially fatal blow on Saturday afternoon when they lost 42-10 at lowly Wellingborough.
The Wrights Meadow outfit made the trip to Northants in pole position to take over at the top of the Midlands 2 East South going into the final few weeks of the season.
However, a poor showing against a side struggling near the foot of the table, coupled with a win for league leaders Huntingdon & District, means that Buzzards are now seven points adrift of the summit with only one game in hand.
Victory for third placed Bugbrooke has also put them back in contention to win the league, and they visit Wrights Meadow this Saturday for a must win game for Buzzards.
Buzzards had won their previous four games before their trip to Wellingborough, but the home side began well and soon got the first points on the board with a drop goal followed by a penalty.
The two teams cancelled each other out for much of the first half until just before the break when Dan David kicked a penalty for Buzzards. And it got even better for the visitors second later when Euan Irwin ran a great line to score under the posts.
David duly stepped up and converted to give Buzzards a 10-6 half time advantage. But just before the interval they lost influential player Jack Micans, and his absence was evident in the second period.
The hosts were quick out of the blocks and scored two tries in a matter of minutes to take control of the game.
Buzzards rallied but just could not seem to break down the Wellingborough defence, and with the game going into the final 15 minutes, it could still have gone either way.
But Wellingborough had other ideas and scored three further tries to take the game away from Buzzards who had no answer to their pressure in the closing stages.
The team will need to train hard this week and pick up a victory against Bugbrooke on Saturday to make sure their hard work this season hasn’t been for nothing.