Six games to save their season as Maidenhead fall at Wimbledon

Maidenhead’s Chris Gill. Photo: Paul Morgan

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Maidenhead have just six games left to save their season after going down to a 38-26 defeat away to Wimbledon on Saturday, a result that drops David Mobbs-Smith’s side into the bottom two relegation places.

Speaking ahead of Saturday’s clash, Mobbs-Smith called the game as close to a ‘knockout clash’ as you could get and knew the ramifications of losing it could be bleak.

They did manage to pick up one losing bonus point from the clash which could yet prove crucial come the end of the season. However, Wimbledon collected five points from the game and are now four points above Maids with six games left to play.

Camberley also skipped two points above Maids into 10th place after a 38-38 draw at home to CS Stags.

The bottom two teams will be relegated as normal this season, while the teams finishing ninth and 10th will face each other in a relegation play-off. The team which loses that will then take on a promotion chasing side from the level below.

As Mobbs-Smith has noted it will give those teams two more chances to save their season and survive the drop, so he will be desperate for Maids to get back above one or Camberley or Wimbledon before the Regional 1 South Central season finishes on Saturday, April 11.

Maids will be kicking themselves for a slow start on Saturday as for much of this game they gave every bit as good as they got.

Trailing 19-5 at the break, the visitors fought back bravely in the second half to claim a losing bonus point. They won the second half 21-19, but the damage had been done, and Wimbledon now have a sizeable advantage as they look ahead to their final six matches.

Maids have also now played all their relegation rivals both home and away whereas Wimbledon visit bottom of the table Hammersmith & Fulham on March 7 and Camberley on March 28.

Camberley also host Hammersmith & Fulham on February 14 before welcoming Wimbledon to their place later in the month. So, the odds of Maidenhead now escaping the bottom two appear to be stacked against them and in favour of the two teams just above them.

However, only two points separate Maidenhead from Camberley and four of Maids’ final six matches are at Braywick Park, where they generally perform much better.

They will now hope to pick up two or three victories from those matches against London Scottish Lions, Farnham, Tunbridge Wells and CS Stags and see if they can also summon up an eye-catching win away to either Worthing or Old Alleynians.

Their survival chances do look much bleaker this week, but they are far from dead and buried.