Grove lost a tightly contested game at Beaconsfield 33-30 with the home side slotting an injury time penalty to secure the win.
The visitors nearly lost full back Nick Sevier to a twisted ankle in the warm up, with kicking duties passing to fly half Dave Maryon. Grove started very strongly with their forwards firing on all cylinders but it was the home side who were first on the scoreboard, with a penalty after 12 minutes.
Centre Peter Cakebread then saw yellow for tackling a man without the ball, but despite going down to 14 men Grove equalised when Maryon slotted an easy penalty in the front of the posts as the hosts also lost a man to the sin bin. Flanker Joe Bellinger then broke and fed winger Guy Nicholl who sprinted three quarters of the field to score in the corner, with Maryon missing with the extras.
A second try for Nicholl put Grove 13-3 in front, but Beaconsfield reduced the deficit to five points at the interval with an unconverted try of their own. Grove failed to deal with the restart and the home side were able to spread the ball wide and level the scores at the start of the second period.
On 50 minutes Nicholl threw his marker a dummy and sprinted downfield to claim his hat trick, with the conversion missed. Cakefield then saw red for a retaliatory punch and Grove were a man down for the rest of the game.
Beaconsfield tried to create an overlap out wide but spilled the ball and Maryon hacked the ball up to the hosts' try line. Awarded a penalty in front of the posts for holding onto the ball, Grove took it quickly and threw it wide to centre Jamie Burns who touched down with Maryon adding the extras.
Trailing 13-25, the hosts created a two-on-one overlap and clawed a converted try back. Beaconsfield created a second overlap shortly after but spilled the ball with only Harry Carr to beat and he picked up the ball and ran the length of the field to score Grove's fifth try of the afternoon.
With 10 minutes left the home sides pulled a try back to narrow the gap to five points and then levelled despite appearing to throw a forward pass as they breached the Grove defence again. Deep into added on time Steve Dixey was penalised for going over the top as Grove clung on desperately and the penalty saw the win go to the home side.
