The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Head coach Ben Williams is refusing to get too downbeat despite the latest setback in Spalding RFC’s testing season.
Saturday’s 53-19 loss at Paviors, one of the weaker sides in Midlands One East, made it 23 losses from as many matches for already-relegated Town.
Although he hates losing, the club stalwart was impressed with some of Town’s offensive play. But he’s very much looking forward to regrouping over the close season.
Williams said: “Obviously it’s very disappointing to lose every week.
“But I still see lots of positives. Some of our tries on Saturday were the best we’ve produced all season – especially the last one, which came after ten or 15 phases of play.
“We’re just making lots of simple, basic mistakes and are getting punished for them. We sat down and analysed the game on Sunday and realised that four or five of their tries came from one missed tackle.
“We’re also very poor in the scrum, but on the flipside our lineouts are getting very good.
“We had a lot of young lads drafted in to play too, including plenty in the back line. We’ve just not had enough time together to make things work.
“The youngsters have all done very well, but we really need to get everyone together over the summer so we can bond as a team and work on the basics.
“For now, the lads just have to keep their heads up and carry on going.”
That could be easier said than done for Town this Saturday, as they make the daunting trip to league leaders Syston (3pm).
A whopping 99 points separates the hosts (102) and rock-bottom Town (3) – and to put Spalding’s task into context, Syston smashed Paviors 67-0 two weeks ago.
Town do welcome back Luke Scotney, Tim Waltham and Harry Brown, while Williams will continue in an unfamiliar fly-half role.
The head coach added: “It’ll be extremely hard at Syston. We’ve just have to go there and give it a go – what more can we do?”
