‘Immature’ Maids give hosts Brighton a huge helping hand
Maids lose 25-23 on the south coast but signs are positive they can turn around poor form
Maidenhead displayed signs that they might be finally turning the corner again in Saturday's 25-23 defeat away to Brighton, but director of rugby Myke Parrott acknowledged afterwards they’ve still got some way to go to get their season back on track.
In truth, Maids probably should have won this tight, tense clash on the south coast, and they were certainly the side pressing for victory in the final stages, however, having gifted their hosts a healthy lead in the first half, the visitors left themselves with too much to do.
This performance was a big improvement on their recent, more harrowing defeats to Wimbledon (67-15), Camberley (40-15) and Oxford Harlequins (46-29), but, while they were far from outplayed by Brighton, they did display an immaturity and inexperience, particularly in an error-strewn first half.
Twice in the first 40 minutes they handed the home side tries on a plate as loose, lofted passes were intercepted and cashed in for points by Brighton.
This gave the home side a stranglehold on the game at 15-3, but that grip was loosened by the visitors after the break and Maids briefly held the lead after scoring two well-worked tries.
Throwing the ball around with the flare that characterised their early season victories, they looked more than capable of stopping the rot of defeats, however, Brighton mustered one final attack to grab the game-winning score.
“We should have won that game on Saturday, 100 per cent,” said Parrott.
“It’s a different kind of disappointment this week. We gifted them 14 points in the first half. I don’t know if the guys were over keen to make amends for recent results, but they did some silly things which cost us a lot of points.
“A couple of the tries we scored were really good, and we tore them apart at times, but Brighton is a tough place to go. Not many teams win there, but we should have won there. But we take the positives and hopefully we’ll have another
improved display against a very tough Havant side this Saturday.
“We threw away two intercept passes for them to score and were 15-3 down at half-time. We made a lot of bad errors in the first half, and I think all the boys would admit that. But there was a realisation from them that they were so much better than what they were showing out there.
“The lads started the second half really well, scored a couple of good tries and we were in the lead at one point which is great, but they scored a try and in the last five minutes we were chasing to try and overcome that twopoint deficit.
“They’ve got a big pack and they kept the ball well to be fair to them.
“But Saturday was characteristic of quite a young, immature side, and that’s what we are now. It’s exciting and we’re playing some great stuff, but a lot of these players haven’t played a lot of rugby and they’re getting some really good lessons.”
The result leaves Maids sixth in Regional 1 South Central, and having led the division just five weeks ago, they now sit 13 points adrift of leaders Wimbledon.
Next up is another difficult looking home game against third placed
Havant who have only lost two league games all season. One of those came at home to Wimbledon on Saturday (1611), while the other came at Brighton when they were edged out 39-38.
They’ve also chalked up six victories, including a swashbuckling 38-5 away win over Oxford Harlequins, and they'll be looking to keep themselves in the promotion picture with a similar display at Braywick Park.
“Havant are a very different animal to anything else in this league, I think,” said Parrott. “They’re hugely physical and even their backline are big, strong, physically fit lads. Defensively, they’ll be very good, their set piece will be very good, and they have big ball carriers.
“It will be a big test for our lads, but it’s also going to be interesting because there’s a contrast in styles as well.
We’ll have to see how we go.”
Maids should be a little stronger across both their forward and back line, with one or two key personnel returning to the fold, but the squad is still stretched with several players carrying short-term knocks.
“We’ve got some key players coming back. Scott Prince returned on Saturday and made a big difference,” revealed Parrott. “Christoph Bart is going to be another week, Niall
Crosley, unfortunately, another couple of weeks. We’ve got a lot of backs out injured now, which is also affecting our second team, but on the plus side, we’ve got a couple of lads coming back into the forward pack. Mike Grealish should be back to play at prop and Elliott Beattie is very close to a return and may well play for the third team this weekend.
“They’ll make a massive difference as one of the key issues we’ve had in recent weeks is we haven't been able to win much ball at scrum time.
“Having some reinforcements there will make a huge difference as it means we're going to get much more of our own ball and we also won’t be bullied at scrum time. When our backs have 50 per cent of the ball, then we’re not going to lose many games.”