MARTIN Lloyd believes Swindon College Old Boys’ first defeat of the season could ironically prove to be one of the most beneficial moments of their campaign.

College, who are runaway leaders of the Berks/Bucks & Oxon Premier, saw their sparkling unbeaten run brought to an end as they were beaten 29-22 at Drifters, the Buckinghamshire outfit that were also relegated from Southern Counties North last term.

The visitors crossed the whitewash three times through Gareth Davis, Florian Palcau and Charlie Grabe, who made up the rest of College’s total with the boot, but were ultimately reacquainted with the unfamiliar feeling of a loss.

Director of rugby Lloyd had no qualms over the final result at Old Pin Lane but has his fingers crossed that Saturday’s defeat will keep College honest.

“I think it’s probably one of the best things that could have happened to us,” said Lloyd.

“The gap between our league and the league above is huge, and us losing a game will hopefully have woken us up.

“At the end of the game, all of the lads were saying: ‘fair play to Drifters’, and hopefully they’ll have the right attitude for the next game and learn from what went wrong.

“For a neutral, it was a really great game of rugby and there was some great continuity in the way that both teams played.

“When we played Drifters earlier in the season (on November 5), they came to us missing quite a lot of players and we won comfortably, which was a bit of a fake result.

“They came down with us last season and we knew that they were a good side, and they were really up for this game, so fair play to them.

“We’ve got to look at the positives and we did play some good rugby at times, so there’s a lot of take away.”

Despite the weekend’s defeat, College are 16 points clear at the summit and could mathematically clinch the title on Saturday with a bonus-point home victory over Hungerford and Drifters fail to pick up any points on their trip to Chesham.

Meanwhile, Supermarine brought their nine-match losing run in Dorset and Wilts One North to an end by defeating basement side Devizes II 28-15.

Despite the victory, which was only their third of the season, Marine remain second-from-bottom in the table.