RUGBY TOWN: 'Brilliant' result and performance has boosted Valley's title hopes

Rugby Town boosted their chances of landing the UCL Premier Division title with last weekend’s 3-0 win at in-form Deeping Rangers, as their campaign enters its final quarter this Saturday with a trip to bottom placed Wellingborough Whitworth.

Valley ended the Lincolnshire club’s outstanding run of eleven straight league wins in the process, and manager Carl Adams was delighted with his side’s display.

He said: “Whilst the results have been good recently, we accept that the performances haven’t always been where we would want them, but on Saturday both the result and the performance were brilliant.

“I believe that we have a stronger all-round team unit than perhaps we had at the start of the season, when we were more about flair and individual contributions.

“Hopefully we are hitting form at just the right time, although of course we are still outsiders at the moment.”

Town’s latest success - their fifth on the trot - saw them leapfrog Deeping into second on goal difference, with long standing leaders Daventry eight points ahead of the pair - having played a game more.

Daventry and Deeping meet this Saturday at the Northamptonshire side’s Communications Park ground, with Adams keen to stress that there is still much to play for despite Daventry’s current sizeable lead.

He continued: “I think if Deeping can turn Daventry over this weekend, then they would be my favourites based on the run-ins of the three sides.

“A draw there would be ideal for us of course, but all we can do is focus on our games and make sure that we don’t make any silly slip ups.

“It would be easy to view this weekend’s fixture as a gimme when you consider Whitworth’s run of results and position in the table, but it’s important that we turn up and do the job or else last weekend’s efforts will be wasted.”

Wellingborough are propping up the table with just eight points from their 28 matches played, and have won just twice with a whopping minus goal difference of 103.

Having narrowly avoided relegation on goal difference at the end of the 2017/18 season, they look set for demotion this time round and have lost six out of their last seven matches by four goals or more - including 6-0, 7-0 and 9-0 reverses. Rugby won the reverse fixture between the two teams by a 4-1 margin at the end of October, thanks to a Danico Johnson treble and goal from Lewis Rankin. Rankin notched his 16th of the season at Deeping to continue his fine campaign in front of goal, as Adams reflected further on Valley’s recent outings.

“Considering we haven’t always been at our best, we’ve still managed just short of twenty goals in five games, whilst at the other end it was great to be able to record our first clean sheet of the calendar year at Deeping too.”

Adams is hopeful that both Fazel Koriya and Richard Bunting will be fit for a return to the squad at Wellingborough, after they missed the Rangers’ victory.

He also confirmed that he is happy with the make-up at the squad at the moment and has no plans to add to his numbers.

He explained: “I think we’ve got a good all-round squad, who seem to be able to deal with the situation we are in. There is no point bringing in players for the sake of it, and I’m more than happy to go with what we have for now.”

# Following the success of their recent promotional initiative for the home game against Kirby Muxloe when entry was free for all spectators, the club have announced the same deal for the visit of Cogenhoe to Butlin Road on Saturda,y April 6th.

# Town academy prospect Jamal Adams has suffered a further setback in his development after picking up a serious knee injury in training. Adams featured in eleven games for the first team earlier in the season, but was out of action for a month at the start of 2019 with a broken bone in his foot. This latest blow looks set to rule the 18 year old striker out for a much longer period, after he was diagnosed with a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

# The club coach to Wellingborough will leave from outside Rugby School at 12 mid-day this Saturday, with the Butlin Road pick-up scheduled for 12.15 p.m. For latest information, contact Tony Mann on 07970 691366.