Maids go 'toe-to-toe' with London Scottish Lions but come away empty-handed

Will Hibberdine and Greg Smith. Photo: Paul Morgan

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Maidenhead produced the performance they needed against London Scottish Lions on Saturday, but the result eluded them once again as the visitors fought back for a 34-25 win.

Maids gave every bit as good as they got from Scottish in an entertaining encounter at Braywick Park, and the relegation threatened hosts had their visitors on the rack at 22-8 in the second half.

But somehow, they failed to capitalise on that authority, and second placed Scottish wrested back momentum to take five points and leave Maids with nothing.

It was tough for the home side to take, having given so much to the contest. Having conceded three second half tries to fall 34-25 behind in the closing stages, they fought desperately hard to claim a couple of losing bonus points from a try in the dying embers, but Scottish denied them, despite being under the pump for the final few moments of the game.

Maids were arguably the better team for much of the opening hour at Braywick Park. They fought back to claim a 15-8 half-time lead thanks to enterprising tries from Lucas Norton and Drew Prince. When Chris Gill bulldozed his way through in the early stages of the second half, a surprise result was in the offing. But Scottish managed to settle themselves and Maids – perhaps sensing victory was within their grasp – started to give away penalties which gave Scottish the foothold they needed to go on and win the game.

They used their successful catch and drive to score twice from lineouts while Harry Churchill collected a risky miss pass to score under the posts, with Greg Smith very nearly intercepting for what would surely have been a breakaway try for Maids.

Speaking after the final whistle, a disappointed Will Hibberdine tried to focus on the positives..

“Week on week we’re getting better and better,” he said.

“To go toe-to-toe with the second best in the league and nearly get the job done, we can be pleased with that. Of course, we want to get over the line and kick on and win these games, because we know we can. But it’s just about picking ourselves up and going again next week.

“Yeah, we can over think on what we could do better. We can count on two hands the things we could do better in that game. But the boys gave everything. That’s the main thing and all we can ask for.

“It’s testament to the boys. We had a few new faces in the team today and they did well. We’ll pick ourselves up and try to do a job next week against Worthing.

“It was also testament to their boys (London Scottish). They’re a physical side. We knew they would be today as well, and they fought all the way to the end.”

The result leaves Maids second from bottom, three points ahead of Hammersmith & Fulham – who produced one of the surprise results of the season to thrash Camberley 64-23 at home. Maids are two points behind Camberley and five behind Wimbledon after their 34-24 loss at Old Alleynians.

They remain very much in danger of being automatically relegated but will feel they stand a good chance of claiming a positive result at Worthing on February 28 if they can reproduce this sort of showing away from Braywick Park.

“I think it’s (the relegation situation) always going to be in the back of your mind, and we have chats on Tuesdays and Thursdays about how we’re going to change these games into match-winning performances,” added Hibberdine.

“We keep saying ‘we’re almost there’ but it’s about flipping these games on their head and getting the points.”