DAN Protherough is hopeful that his tight-knit unit at Bromsgrove will continue to ground out the points to complete a positive first season back in Midlands Premier.
The fifth-placed Boars strengthened their position with a last-gasp 19-16 win over Broadstreet last weekend, after tries from Josh Holt (2), Tom Sadler and a couple of conversions from Will Harris at Finstall Road.
On the back of a result which took their number of wins for the season into double figures after 17 games played, the Bromsgrove director of rugby says he is quietly confident for a strong run-in towards the end of the campaign.
“I don’t want to look too far ahead, but we’ve pushed a lot of sides close and never really been out of any of the games that we’ve played so far,” Protherough said.
“Our focus is to get our heads down and keep going. What we’ve got is a squad of really good blokes, on and off the pitch, that work hard for each other.
“I hope the boys keep doing that, we’ve not played badly in any of the games that we’ve had since Christmas.”
The Boars chief was keen to give credit to their most-recent opponents, who made Bromsgrove work hard for the win despite their lowly league position of 12th.
“It was a very tough game last weekend, they’re a lot better than the league table suggest,” Protherough added.
“Rumour has it they signed a number of players on loan before the game, and they made it a real battle.
“We were losing 3-0 at half-time after playing against the wind, so to go in with that scoreline wasn’t too bad at all.
“We came back out for the second half and it was very even, but we got turned over and they scored after a 40-metre run.
“We hit back quickly with a breakaway try, and then we got ourselves in front.
“But with 14 men on the pitch at 14-13, the game was a nail-biter.
“They scored a penalty with four or five minutes to go. After that we kept them pinned in and after five or six attacking phases we scored with the last play of the game.
“We had to show a lot of character and belief as a group in order to come out on top.”
Bromsgrove now have a weekend off, before returning for a trip to ninth-placed Burton’s Peel Croft home on Saturday, February 15.
