SEEVIC College’s rugby team suffered a painful 15-5 defeat at Silcoates in the quarter-finals of the NatWest School Vase yesterday.

Victory in Yorkshire would have taken the Thundersley based youngsters through to a final four contest at Saracens’ Allianz Park base, where another victory would have taken them to Twickenham.

However, Seevic were unable to find their best form.

And their director of rugby Danny Cleare felt Silcoates fully deserved the victory.

“If I’m honest I think the occasion got to us a little bit,” said Cleare.

“The effort was there but in terms of procedures we didn’t execute any of our structures.

“We made uncharacteristic errors and put ourselves under pressure.

“Silcoates deserved the win as they managed the game better and brought a bit more intensity than us and good luck to them in the next round.”

Seevic’s defeat came after they had already been crowned AOC League Champions.

But Cleare is still keen for the season to end on a high.

“Winning the league was a great achievement and it allows us into the AOC Premier League play-off stage, where we will battle against seven other teams for the title,” said Cleare.

“It’s an important competition for us.

“Last year we managed to get to the finals but this year we are pushing to go one step further and win the AOC Premier League competition.

“We need to focus and get ready for that now and we need to be able to react the right way to this disappointment.”

Seevic trailed 10-0 at half-time and were unable to get back into the game despite a second half try from scrum half Jake Spivey who was also left feeling frustrated at the final whistle.

“It was a competition we all wanted to do well in because it’s everyone’s dream to get to play at Twickenham but unfortunately it didn’t happen for us,” said Spivey, from Rayleigh.

“It’s frustrating because we know we can play better than we did but we just didn’t really seem to get going.

“I don’t really take any pleasure in scoring my try because we lost and that’s all that matters.

“We’re a close group and we wanted to achieve something special together.

“But it’s not the end of the season and we still have other competitions we have to get ready for so we will have to focus on them instead now.

“This hasn’t gone the way we wanted but we have to show the right kind of reaction and come back strongly now.”

The current crop of Seevic youngsters had been hoping to follow in the foot-steps of their 2015 team who made it through to Twickenham in the NatWest School Vase before losing 13-5 to Churcher’s College in an evenly contested final.