CRAIG Burrows admitted it had not been easy watching from the touchline, despite Grove’s 19-point victory margin over Trowbridge.

His side can now look forward to local derbies against Witney and Oxford Harlequins after securing promotion on home turf, but Grove’s head coach knew they had had a real examination.

Burrows said: “I was really nervous.

“We have match winners in Guy Nicholl and Harry Carr, who scored at the crucial point.

“If we hadn’t scored then, I think Trowbridge would have equalised.

“But once we were two tries up, it was a case of closing the game out.”

Grove scored six tries, but were never fully able to shrug off their committed opponents, who recovered well after trailing 27-3.

Burrows said: “Overall, we deserved to win over the 80 minutes, but it was a close game.

“They shut us down well in the second half.”

He added: “We had a game plan to keep the ball alive and I knew we would be strong in the centres.

“Play-off games are about momentum and we had that in the first half.

“We could have capitalised a bit more, but then we let them back at us.

“They are a good team and well organised and really came back at us.

“We struggled to keep the ball in those 20 minutes after half-time and we couldn’t get out of our half.”

Grove and champions Buckingham were promoted from Southern Counties North, while Devizes go up as winners of Southern Counties South.

Quins were relegated to South West 1 East after finishing second-from-bottom in National 3 South West.