Patience must be learned by Maids

Maidenhead RFC's uneasy blend of tempered experience and raw youth delivered yet another victory for coach Ricky Khan on Saturday, but even he was quick to admit that some lessons still need to be learned.

Old rivals High Wycombe – a club which has experienced considerable highs and lows in the past dozen years – are now coached by former Maids players Rob Hawkins and Chad Miller and as expected their charges were focused on making life difficult for the hosts.

And so it proved, as Khan noted: “It was always likely to be a difficult game but I’m pleased to have won.

“They had a good pack and were not interested in getting the ball wide. They played to their strengths and to be fair, in the first half, we got sucked into their way of playing.

“In the second half we started playing our game more. We still showed a lack of patience and put ourselves under pressure when we needed to bide our time.

“The ref didn’t help. He was a little whistle-happy. There were 20 penalties in the match, of which 14 were given rightly or wrongly against us.

“You are going to get young inexperienced refs at this level. I’m not making a big thing of it.

“But the issue for the  players was that he did not communicate to them why he gave a penalty. They didn’t know what they had done wrong, and so couldn’t correct it. It certainly stopped our rhythm.”

However, Khan was delighted with the defensive prowess of his team which have now conceded just six points in three matches and no tries.

He said: “Defensively the backs were excellent. When we had a player sin-binned we defended our line well without giving away penalties. We have been very disciplined about defending in these areas all season.
 
“I thought Ryan Long’s tackling around the rucks was also excellent.”

Khan was also happy to point the spotlight at a few other players, saying: “Skipper Mark Mueller led from the front which is what you need in this sort of match, while Alex Cannon scored another try and showed good skill levels.

“Fly-half Mark Ruddick also made some strong decisions.”