Maidenhead target season-defining win on the road at rivals Camberley

Photo credit: Paul Morgan

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Having gone toe-to-toe with rivals Bracknell before Christmas and come out on the wrong side of a 39-28 defeat, Maidenhead travel to Camberley this Saturday knowing a win could propel them towards Regional 1 South Central survival.

Maids are one of four teams most in danger of being relegated this season – with the pack having been cut adrift from the rest.

But the first objective for head coach David Mobbs-Smith and his players will be finishing outside of the bottom two automatic relegation spots – and they’re currently best placed to do that, sitting a few points above Wimbledon, Camberley and bottom club Hammersmith & Fulham in ninth.

They know a win at Camberley this weekend would shorten their odds for survival while lengthening those of a key rival, therefore this is a must win, ‘double pointer’ for Maids and their head coach.

Should they stretch their points lead over Camberley – which is currently at three points – to a healthy seven- or eight-point advantage, Maids would be well placed to at least finish above Saturday’s hosts this season. With Hammersmith & Fulham already eight points adrift of them at the foot of the table, a win – or bonus point win – this weekend would go a long way to ensuring their survival.

The teams finishing ninth and 10th in the table won’t be guaranteed survival either but would get the chance to fight for their place in the Regional 1 South Central Division in a series of relegation play-off matches.

“We’re in a similar position,” Mobbs-Smith said of the teams at the bottom. “We’re one of the four sides now that are detached from the rest of the league.

“All of us are trying to finish in that ninth and 10th position. It’s going to come down to a couple of games against each other, they’ll be huge and they become double pointers.

“Then you might get one surprise win on the road, or one surprise win at home for example and that puts an enormous amount of pressure on the teams that don’t achieve that.

“Whoever wins this weekend gives themselves a better chance because you’re denying one of your biggest rivals the chance to get points.

“Camberley are a little bit unpredictable because they’ve just changed all their coaching staff. We’re not sure what to expect. Probably some new players have signed. We’ll just have to go into it focusing on ourselves.”

He added: “There’s a reason why both of us are down where we are. We’re obviously scoring less than the people we’re playing against. But that changes when you play each other, very similar to the Hammersmith and Fulham game. You hope you have a chance to do something in that game because you’re playing a team in a similar predicament. They probably have similar problems.

“Camberley play a different style to Hammersmith, but then they have a new coaching set up so I’m not sure. Again, when you’re down in this situation, you either tighten up and try to get anything you can out of matches or you throw caution to the wind and try to win games by playing attacking rugby.

“You must do something different to change what’s been happening in the season. We must do it this week against them.”

Camberley have conceded more points in the division (565) than any other side. Significantly more than bottom club Hammersmith & Fulham, so it’s perhaps not surprising they’ve made some changes to their coaching set up. How they’ll set up and perform against Maids on Saturday is therefore a bit of a mystery, but they come into the clash off the back of two heavy defeats to Farnham (61-33) and Worthing (53-22).

“If we can go there and win, they’d have to win two more matches than us over the course of the season to get close to us,” said Mobbs-Smith. “That’s the kind of pressure we hope to put them under. If we have the same result that we had at Hammersmith. That might do that.

“We have a decent side to go there. The forecast looks ok now so fingers crossed that stays the same. When you have the long break, matches can be unpredictable because sides get players back or some Uni boys are still at home. Either side of Christmas there can be some interesting results. It’s hard to judge what might happen.

“But we’re looking forward to it and it’s a wonderful opportunity to go away from home and do something that might help us a lot. We’ve got a few interesting ones on the horizon.”