Mobbs-Smith knows what must be done to address Maids' poor form

Alex Turton. Photo: Paul Morgan

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Head coach David Mobbs-Smith admits Maidenhead’s recent poor form is a cause for concern, however, he believes he knows what needs to be done to address it.

Saturday’s 38-24 defeat to bottom of the table Horsham was Maids’ fifth defeat from six in what’s becoming an increasingly challenging campaign.

However, four of their opening six matches have been away from Braywick Park and Mobbs-Smith is hoping the familiarity of home turf will help his side get back to winning ways in Saturday’s derby clash with Bracknell RFC.

Maids appeared to have set the benchmark for performances this season, with their impressive 31-22 win over Camberley on September 9. However, since then they’ve lost the Hammersmith & Fulham, London Welsh, CS Stags and now Horsham, conceding more than 35 points in all those games.

Scoring tries hasn’t been a problem – Maidenhead have scored nearly as many points as second placed London Welsh – however, preventing them has, and that’s what the coaching team have been looking to address ahead of the visit of fifth placed Bracknell on Saturday.

“It is a concern, but it’s also a conundrum,” said Mobbs-Smith. “But we know what’s the cause of it. Usually it’s missed tackles or missed communication.

“This Saturday, on the clock, it’s 26-24 to them and we’re attacking near their try line. But we lose the ball, they kick it down the pitch and they win the foot race to score. They then score again from the restart and they’ve scored two tries almost on full-time. It looks like we’ve been clobbered when really we should probably have won the game ourselves.

“It was that fine a line. It was very tight and I felt that we would walk out of there with a bonus point loss at the worst.

“It looks like we’ve been comprehensively outplayed, but we weren’t. It was a very tight game.

“We need to improve on our possession, and that comes down to your set piece, your scrum, your lineout. Can you keep the ball when you have those set pieces and can you play multi-phase rugby. That makes it hard for your opponents because they just have less of the ball.”

While Maidenhead have competed well in almost every game they’ve played this season, they’ve finished up on the losing side five out of six times. Mobbs-Smith believes morale and confidence is fine, however, he admits losing can become a habit much like winning does.

“100 per cent, we’ve almost scored the same number of points as London Welsh this season, and they’ve won five out of six and sit second,” he said.

“Are we concerned that we’re losing games? Yes. Are we playing well enough to win them? Also, yes. Can we turn it around this weekend in the huge derby against Bracknell? We hope so.

“It’s going to be a cracking game and what a better place to start our resurgence. We’re playing well enough to win, but it’s the same story every week. Something unravels and then we’re chasing the game.

“We’ve also played four of our six games away. That’s also a factor, because we’ve won one of those home games. If you’re going to finish fourth or fifth in the league you’ve got to win 11 or 12 of your 22 games and you’ll probably find that nine of those were at home.

“We’re relying on our home form to give us that mid-table respectability and our away form to give us those extra points to get into the top four or possibly win the league.

“That’s gone from us now because we just haven’t managed to win games we should have, like at Bournemouth and Horsham.”