For the third straight year Eton Manor’s promotion fate will be decided by a play-off after they could only draw 18-18 with Colchester on Saturday, meaning they missed out on the title.

Jamie Connors’ side were just pipped to the London One North East title by two points, with the draw enough for the Essex outfit to snatch the championship from under Manor’s nose.

Ahead 6-3 via the boot of Callum McKie, Manor were soon hauled back by their visitors before tries from Reece Reed and Nick Horton helped the home side drag themselves level. But ultimately a point was not enough.

“We are trying not to get too emotional,” stated head coach Connors. “We have got a good opportunity this weekend. We were disappointed not to win the league because it was our goal at the beginning of the season, so I suppose you could say we have fallen short.

“Everyone was gutted on Saturday but we have a great chance now.”

He continued: “Our accuracey was not 100 per cent and we dropped a bit of ball which we don't normally do. We gifted them a try and there were a couple of areas where we were not quite at the races. But if we can shore up those areas, we will have a good chance.”

Eton Manor have twice been beaten in the play-offs in the past two seasons, going down to Chichester last year and Basingstoke in 2013.

Now Connors side will now face Chobham on Saturday in a winner-takes-all battle.

And Connors believes their previous experience in the play-offs will stand them in good stead.

He explained: “The Colchester game at the weekend was definitely to the standard of a play-off game. I think the guys can take forward the fact they know what to expect in terms of the pace and physicality of the game.

“We have had the same squad over the last couple of years so they are all aware of the standard required. If you can catch Chobham napping a little bit then we may be able to take advantage.”

Particularly galling for Connors and Manor was the fact they even surpassed last season’s points tally by a massive 14 points to finish with a total of 118.

But the South African believes their performance in the last 20 minutes suggests there is no reason his side cannot secure promotion at the third attempt.

“Once we got control of the game in the last 20 minutes we caused them problems and we were much better. The fact we missed a penalty late on shows you quite how close we actually were to winning it.”