Brixham RFC will test an out-of-sorts and weakened Maidenhead RFC

Concerns over their inconsistent player availability continue to hound Maidenhead ahead of their trip to Brixham on Saturday.

Maids took a weakened team down to Ivybridge last weekend for their postponed clash with the Devon side and came away having lost 49-26, conceding seven tries for the second successive match.

Maids now face another potentially tough game in Devon and again are not able to select from anything resembling a full squad.

Head coach Russell Bolton, who himself missed the trip to Ivybridge, admitted things are becoming frustrating but believes that their season is still on track.

“Our issue again is consistency of availability,” he said.

“We have a mixture of unavailable and injured players.

“The Darlington brothers are on international duty again (with the Netherlands) – but we knew about that – and I think we will be without Greg Blewitt, Ryan Long, Tom King, Will Cadden, Louis Ellis and Alex French.

“This has been frustrating all season but we are an amateur club and this happens, but we had great success last year which matched up with some excellent availability.

“Brixham will be a test but I’m not expecting us to start losing four or five games on the bounce now.”

He added: “Even if we just pick up a bonus point at Brixham, and we are capable of doing much better than that, then we will still be incontention at the top of the table with Newton Abbot and Bournemouth to play next.

“We will still be well placed.”

A depleted Maids side, which contained players from the 1st team, 2nd team and colts team, lost to Ivybridge after conceding three first-half tries and trailing 23-0 at half-time.

To their credit they bagged a bonus point by running in four tries – two from debutant Dominik Bart and one each from John Cranton and Max Roddick – although so did the hosts.

“It was a little bit disappointing as we hoped to catch them, like we were, understrength,” said Bolton.

“But to their credit they put out a strong side. It looks like we did well to get the bonus point in the end, and maintaining our form of scoring four tries away from home.”