A BIG win over Abbey sent Maidenhead RFC to the top of South West Division 2 (East) this week, adding further impetus to the club’s promotion campaign.
With just eight games left to play, Maids now lead Oxford on points difference, although crucially the Harlequins still have a game in hand.
However, in terms of the run-in, Maids could hardly have it any harder, as they face four away games against their four main title contenders.
Assistant coach Andy Barron said: “It could be a bit better but, having said that, all the top teams still have to play each other.
“Swanage & Wareham have to play Chippenham, and Oxford have to go to Swanage and get a result.
“We want to go the rest of the season undefeated. That’s the target we’ve set ourselves and that’s what it’ll take to get promoted.
“And, unlike previous years, it’s all up to us. We’re not depending on other teams to get results for us. It’s 100 per cent in our own hands.”
One area where Maids will have to improve, if they hope to achieve their goal, is their performance in the second half.
In their 14 games to date, Maids have scored 212 points in the first half but just 131 points after the interval, while on six occasions they have failed to score more than eight points in the second half.
Barron said: “It’s quite funny. In the past our first 20 minutes have traditionally been our worst. We never came out of the blocks firing on all cylinders.
“But we’re up for every game now. We get 20 points ahead of these teams and they don’t want to get dicked, so they dig deep.
“We went out into a big lead on Saturday and for Abbey it became a damage limitation exercise.
“And how were they going to do that? By starting a fight or killing the ball.
“The referee let them slow the game down to their pace and we lost a bit of discipline.
“But overall it wasn’t a bad performance.”
Tomorrow (Saturday) Maids travel to newly promoted Wimborne, who are now in a distant fifth place in South West 2 (East), six points adrift of Chippenham and 10 points behind Maidenhead.
The Dorset side have lost every encounter with the top-four teams, but ran Oxford Harlequins and Swanage & Wareham pretty close earlier in the season, so could prove a surprise package.
Players to watch are second-row forward George Leyland, flanker Dave Oddie and inside centre Mark Griffith, who have scored 20 tries between them.
Unusually, it is Leyland who leads the way, having scored eight tries to Griffith’s seven.
Barron said: “They won their league last year and have had some good results in South West 2.
“Their home is their fortress and they have a big pack of forwards. All the games down there have been pretty close.
“We’re going to play it exactly as we did on Saturday and hopefully we’ll get a result.
“In all honesty, if we play to our own game, I don’t think there are many teams in this league that can beat us.”