Maids have the depth to compete in new league
Mobbs-Smith hoping injuries won't strike in pre-season games
Head coach David Mobbs-Smith is certain Maidenhead RFC’s first-team squad will have the necessary depth to compete in their new league, the Regional 1 South Central Division.
However, if more strength and depth is needed ahead of the new campaign, he knows it will show in the side's pre-season matches.
Those warm-up matches have already kicked-off, with Maids travelling to Launceston RFC over the weekend to take on Barnstaple and Launceston.
Maids kick off their new campaign in less than a month's time, with a home game against London Welsh at Braywick on Saturday, September 3.
Despite playing out an impressive pre-season last year, Maids didn’t quite have the depth to be competitive in the London & South East Premier Division, and that situation was compounded by the injuries they picked up in the first few weeks of the season.
They won just one of their first five matches but improved across all areas of the team as the season wore on and ended the campaign as one of the form sides, finishing in a creditable eighth position.
Mobbs-Smith is optimistic they won't have the same slow start to the season this year, and, with the signings they've made so far this summer - due to be announced in due course he's confident they'll have a very successful season.
“We believe there is more depth to our squad this year, but these next few pre-season games will certainly show us whether there is or not,” he said.
“The other thing is that we are keeping our fingers crossed we don’t pick up as many early season injuries as we did last year which really hurt us. We had a great pre-season and we picked up so many injuries that it really hurt us until about Christmas
time. Rugby is a hugely competitive game. You can try and prepare for it as best you can but with any sport that has contact, you sometimes have a run of injuries that you don’t have the depth of squad to deal with.
“Hopefully this year, we have that. We have been trying to get a deeper squad so that we can deal with those issues if they arise as badly as they did last year. Well, we are hoping they don’t arise at all.
“We have lots of new players. We haven’t announced who they all are yet, but we will be at some point. They’re all fighting for places in both our first team and second team.”
Maids journeyed down to Cornwall at the weekend to take on Launceston - the Cornish All Blacks - and Barnstaple, two of the strongest teams in the South West leagues. They drew
the first with Barnstaple and lost a tight game to Launceston in the second.
“It was a good trip away,” said Mobbs Smith. “We thought we’d make it an overnight stay just to create a little bit more team bonding.
“We played Barnstaple, and we played Launceston. We drew with Barnstaple, and we lost to Launceston, but it was a fairly tight game.
“They weren’t like proper matches, they were 30-minute runouts really, and you can change your team, and make as many substitutions, as you like in that time. You can see which players fit in and which players work well together. A different team will play this weekend than the one that went to Cornwall.
“We welcome Colchester RFC to Braywick Park for a 3pm kick-off.”