Football
Town boss is buoyed by form

Buy photos » Robbie Banks (right) celebrates getting on the scoresheet with Tyrone Fagan. Picture by Martin Pulley.

RUGBY Town boss Dave Stringer is hoping February proves to be just as successful a month as the one that preceded it, after his side’s impressive form continued on Saturday with a comfortable 4-1 home success against Burnham.

The latest victory made it five wins and a draw from six games in January and Stringer focused on the current level of positivity at the club when saying: “It’s great to go unbeaten for the month. Everyone’s obviously buzzing at the moment and we’ve got ourselves back in a great position as a result.

“Of course we are not going to get too carried away as there is still along way to go, but if we can keep our current form going we believe that we can be challenging in the top five by the end of the season.

“It was an excellent victory on Saturday, as I think Burnham are a better team than their position in the table suggests.

“The reports that we had received before the game indicated that they were a powerful, physical unit, so we changed to a more orthodoxed formation to combat this and fortunately the plan worked well.

“What’s really pleasing is that we are scoring goals from all areas of the pitch, not just the strikers, and we are also looking solid defensively too.”

To support Stringer’s point, Town’s last 11 goals have come from 11 different players, including Richard Blythe and Michael Williams who were both on target for the first time in a Rugby shirt on Saturday.

January’s only minor blemish came early on with the 3-3 home draw against Woodford, where Valley threw away a two-goal lead in the second half. But with 16 goals scored and only five conceded in total across the month, Town have moved up to within a point of the Southern League Division One Central play-off zone and also reached the quarter-finals of the League Cup.

Stringer continued: “The top two in the table (Slough and St. Neots) appear to be pulling clear, but with Beaconsfield and Bedworth both dropping back a little recently, third place is now a realistic target.”

After a run of games against teams in the bottom half of the table, Stringer’s men will arguably receive a tougher examination of their promotion credentials over the coming fortnight, with a trip to fifth placed Biggleswade on Saturday followed by the visit to Butlin Road of St. Neots on February 11.

Stringer is confident that he will have the same squad to select from again this week and is also hopeful that defender Melvin Gourlay, who was originally ruled out for the remainder of the season with an arm injury, may in fact be available again within a month.

Sandwiched in between Valley’s two testing league fixtures is the League Cup quarter-final at Chesham on Tuesday.

THE club coach to Biggleswade’s Carlsberg Stadium will leave the clubhouse at 12noon and with a 60 seater vehicle booked, there should be room for all interested in travelling. Contact Tony Mann on 07970 691366 for further information.

There is also a coach going to Chesham on Tuesday, leaving Rugby at 5pm.