Maddern: ‘We will take the learnings from this loss’
Coaches often say you learn more in defeat than you do in victory, and Maidenhead fullback Jamie Maddern is certainly hoping Maids can 'take the learnings' from Saturday's loss to Oxford Harlequins.
Maids saw their three-point lead at the top of the Regional 1 South Central table overhauled by Quins, who ran out comfortable 46-29 winners at Braywick Park on Saturday.
However, there were one or two mitigating factors for Maids' defeat, including the loss of influential forward Antonio Kiri Kiri for 50 minutes of the match after he picked up a yellow card in the first half and a red card in the first seconds of the second half.
They also made a couple of rookie errors in the first half, spilling a catch directly into the hands of Willo Bicknell who ran in the second of his three tries to give the visitors a 12-0 lead early in the game.
However, despite this disadvantage, Maids recovered from a sloppy first half showing to compete well with Quins in the second half.
Reflecting on Maids' first loss of the season, Maddern said: “It was a disappointing first half.
“We got blown away, they came at us hard. They ran over us and we struggled with that side of things.
“We felt we were still in it at half-time, we know this side is good enough to score 20-odd points in the space of 10 minutes.
“There were other ups and downs but we’re proud of the character we showed and there are a lot of learnings for us in that as well, we’re a young side.”
Maddern added: “It’s if, buts and maybes. They were still on top of us for periods of that second half and it was only when they were 30 points clear, and the game was done that we started to play our rugby.
“We want to be playing our rugby and they didn’t give us a chance to. The fact that we did it with 14 rather than 15 doesn’t make much of a difference We still want to play that rugby
“We’re a young side that’s coming together and gelling and we’ve had a great start.
“We've had four wins on the bounce and were sitting pretty at the top.
“But you need these learnings to grow as a side.
“We still think that we’re able to compete at the top of this table and we’ll have that belief because we’re a young side. This doesn’t change anything
“It’s early days, it’s the start. “We’ll assess when we’ve played everyone once, but this result doesn’t change anything for us, we’re still going to play our rugby and we still want to entertain the crowds here at Braywick.
“That’s our main goal and whatever will be will be with the league.”
Having slipped to third in the table behind new leaders Harlequins, and second placed Wimbledon - who hammered Royal Wootton Bassett 63-7 away from home on Saturday - Maids have a break this weekend before visiting fifth placed Camberley on Saturday, October 15. Camberley have won their last three games and were 46-17 winners over Banbury on Saturday.