Blues remain focussed ahead of crunch clash

Newbury travel to Berkshire rivals Maidenhead this weekend desperate for a win

NEWBURY Blues head coach Lee Goodall believes his side are in a good position ahead of their South West Premier clash with Maidenhead on Saturday.

The Blues head into the game feeling fresh after having last weekend off to prepare for the match against the third place side.

When the two sides met back in October, Goodall’s men were 39-15 winners at Monks Lane and the head coach has backed his team to deliver a strong performance.

During that victory for the Blues, Toby Thorne was on hand to go over the line twice while Josh Bartlett was also able to score a try as they were comfortable winners against Maidenhead.

Speaking ahead of the game, he said: “We are looking forward to it, we used the weekend off to look at some of our previous games especially our home win against Maidenhead and we reviewed the different parts to that.”

Newbury are currently sitting in the division’s relegation zone after suffering a 21-10 defeat to Camborne last time out and as a result remain four points from Weston-super-Mare in 11th.

The division remains very tight at the bottom of the table and Goodall’s side need the points ahead of some difficult fixtures.

The Blues have seven games remaining, with all of them being against the teams in the top seven of the division.

However, Newbury shouldn’t be afraid of playing any team sitting above them in the league as they have already recorded some big results.

As well as already beating Maidenhead, the Blues have taken points off Bournemouth and Newton Abbot who sit in second and fourth place respectively.

As a result of this, Goodall is remaining confident ahead of Saturday’s clash with Maidenhead and is already aware of the game plan his side will set-up.

He said: “We think we know their strengths and weaknesses and we’re going to try to exploit these, so we’re feeling good.”

As the Blues had a useful weekend off, Goodall is hoping he can welcome back a number of players from his injury list to bolster the squad ahead of this crucial stage of the season.

The club’s head coach revealed last week that there were a number of players who were still on the injury list but admitted that he will have to assess the squad before Saturday’s game.

He said: “I’m hoping that we’ll get a couple back and obviously I would like them back.”

After the trip to Maidenhead, the Blues will have another weekend free before welcoming Cleve in the league.