"Absolutely incredible." That was Winchester coach Mike Marchant's assessment of his sides' failure to cling on to a one-point lead for five minutes to sink Portsmouth in their derby London Division Two South meeting.

He was also far from pleased with the amount of handling errors and general misnomers that consequently cost them victory - including dropping the ball under the posts for a guaranteed seven points!

Marchant was fuming that his charges could so easily throw the game away having dominated the second half and clawed their way back from a 14-0 interval deficit to lead 18-17 with time running down.

Limping speedster Matthew Gronow drove through the midfield and his chip ahead found veteran centre Shaun Godkin on hand to wrap up the victory in the dying minutes - and Portsmouth coach Ian Chandler was a relieved man.

"With all the injuries we have got, they should have beaten us all over," he said.

"We defended superbly but at 18-17 down, I could not see us winning the game."

Marchant knows it was a chance gone begging.

"We should have won this game at a canter.

"We threw it away."