HAVING asked everyone not to get carried away when Maidenhead lost three of its four opening games, coach Simon Edwards has now changed his tune.
Two big wins over Dorchester and Keynsham have lifted Maidenhead to the dizzy heights of seventh place in South West Division 1.
Before Saturday they had scored just 40 points in four games, but they now have a whopping 146 points on the board, something of a miracle considering their appalling performance against Chinnor just three short weeks ago.
However, Edwards is now saying: “Let’s not get carried away, we have only won two games in a row.”
But what has brought about this extraordinary change in fortune?
Many would put it down to the decision to abandon the regular training session ahead of the Dorchester game, to spend the evening talking about their miserable slump in form, rather than practising moves which were not coming off on the pitch.
However, Edwards refutes this claim, preferring to see the wins as just another game.
He said: “We haven’t discovered a magic formula.
“We just had a chat about the whole situation.
“We aired our views, took the positives and put the negatives in the bin.
“I think we built up too much pressure in the early season by talking about must-win games.
“It put too much pressure on the players and they really don’t need that.”
“We have just beaten two sides who are in the bottom two or three in the league.”
However, there was some optimism that the recent victories had finally helped his players to turn a psychological corner.
He added: “Keynsham are always a good side, but we scored five tries to their one, and have now scored 110 points in two weeks.
“Something must be right but let’s not get carried away.
“We are still not playing to the standard I want and we are a long way from challenging sides like Barnstaple.”
But that is just what Edwards hopes to achieve on Saturday, when the sides meet for a highly charged league clash at Braywick.
Edwards said: “They are a good side. We regularly have tough battles against them and they have already put 30 points past us in the cup, although we were playing with a depleted team.
“Saturday’s game will be the real test to see just how far we have improved.”
Injuries have been a major problem for Edwards this season and despite the recent return to fitness of Rob Bryant, there are now doubts over Simon Cripps and Mark Ruddick, both nursing leg injuries.
South African centre Mostert is also a regular absentee.
However, the return of club stalwart Allan Greene is now only two weeks away and there does seem to be a more settled feel to the squad in recent weeks.
Another of Edwards main complaints has been inconsistent refereeing, which he again attacked, claiming Saturday’s match official had kept Keynsham in the game.
He said: “Against Dorchester we didn’t have any problems with the referee.
“The following week we were scoring tries but nearly got kicked out of the game, when the referee gave Keynsham 20 penalties to our three. We didn’t play any differently.
“After the game I asked him if we could discuss his interpretation of the penalties and he refused.
“How can we put things right if we don’t know what we’re doing wrong? It was very disappointing.”
Saturday’s match against Barnstaple kicks-off at 2.30pm, at Braywick Park.