Maidenhead aiming to 'change the landscape' after crucial away win over Hammersmith

Maidenhead’s Drew Prince. Photo: Paul Morgan

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Maidenhead are hoping they can ‘change the landscape’ of their faltering season in the coming weeks as they look to back up Saturday’s crucial 33-34 victory over Hammersmith & Fulham.

Maids managed to sneak a victory over the league’s bottom side, with the home side missing a kick to win the match after scoring deep into added time.

There was great relief for the visitors as the ball shaved the outside of the post to confirm their first away points of the season, and a bonus point win at that.

The victory is crucial in context of Maids’ disappointing season so far. Not only is it a win over a direct relegation rival, but it moves them up to ninth place, eight points ahead of Hammersmith at the foot of the Regional 1 South Central table, and four above 10th placed Wimbledon.

Speaking this week, he said the celebrations after the final whistle on Saturday were subdued. New signing Boris Ames and former colt Lucas Norton grabbed a brace of tries each to knock back Hammersmith’s hopes in a ‘tit-for-tat’ contest.

This was a vital ‘double point’ win, but Maids will now look to back it up at home to in-form derby rivals Bracknell on Saturday (December 20), while they return following the Christmas and New Year break to a titanic clash away to 11th placed Camberley on Saturday, January 10.

“One win out of three helps us, because it staves off the teams behind us and our league position immediately looks healthier,” said Mobbs-Smith. “If we can pick up two wins from this run of three matches it would be huge and, of course, three wins from three would change the landscape.

“Winning away was huge for us. If you look at our away form this year, it’s probably the worst it’s been for five years. Hammersmith also played well. They will be devastated they didn’t win because they had some great play and scored some great tries. It was a ding-dong battle that somebody had to win and luckily, it was us.

“They managed to get a second bonus point with their late try. It would have been nice to keep them to one point, but a bonus point away win is a big jump in our fortunes.”

Bracknell travel to Braywick Park this Saturday as one of the division’s form sides. In recent weeks they’ve beaten Farnham and Wimbledon, while they’ve come the closest of anyone to beating leaders Jersey when they restricted them to a 14-7 victory away from home on November 22. Jersey are currently on course for an ‘Invincibles’ season having won all 12 of their matches so far.

“This weekend will be really tough,” added Mobbs-Smith. “They’re in good form and have had some very promising results and performances. It’s a very tough home game for us anyway in that respect and then you add in the rivalry aspect as well.

“But most times when we play the scores aren’t too far apart. It’s often very tight, settled by one score. That’s how it was in the away game this season where we didn’t get a losing bonus point, but that’s the least we should have had.

“It should be a good day. The rivalry brings out the old guard, who are the real rivalry and there’s plenty of banter in the stands. They’re playing well so we’ll need to lift our standards once again, and it’s a bit like knock out rugby for us now. We basically have to try and get something from all our remaining games.

“These three games (Hammersmith, Bracknell and Camberley) are key to the rest of our season. I’m not saying we’ll win both as we may not win either of them. But one of those teams is in the mess with us, so it makes that one another double pointer.”

Finishing outside of the bottom two automatic relegation places is the first aim for Maids this season. If they can win enough matches to skip into the top eight, that would be a big bonus, but head coach David Mobbs-Smith would likely take a ninth or 10th placed finish if you were to offer it to him right now.

“We could pull somebody else in the dogfight, but the reality is, as things stand in front of us now, there are four teams of which two are getting automatically relegated,” he said. “The fight for us right now is to finish ninth or 10th. If we win enough games and finish eighth that would be a big bonus but right now, two of the bottom four teams look like they’ll be relegated.

“Wimbledon have found form, something has happened there, they must have some players back and they might be able to find their way out. But if you were to ask us, would we be happy for the season to finish now, as things stand, we’d probably both say yes to avoid being automatically relegated.

“With the relegation play-offs you get a few lives. If we played Wimbledon and lost that, we’d still then play a team from the league below at home. So that’s advantage us and we’d still have a good chance of ensuring we weren’t relegated.”