Sam Cooke has always maintained that his Spalding RFC side would come good.
His faith was finally vindicated by Saturday’s thrilling 26-22 win over Nottingham Casuals as Town registered their first league success of the campaign.
Captain Cooke admits that the beer “tasted better” on Saturday night and that he was “proud as punch” by the performance.
But he’s now challenged his team-mates to make it back-to-back victories at fellow strugglers Southwell this Saturday (2.15pm) as he bids to reach his goal of mid-table by the end of the campaign.
“I feel like we’ve turned a corner,” said the skipper. “It was a great feeling to get that win and we all had a great night.
“The beer certainly tasted much better and morale was very high.
“I was proud as punch on Saturday, the lads really got the result their hard work deserved.
“I do expect us to be in mid-table, but getting that first win took a while to sink in, if I’m honest.
“I did fear the worst when we had a late try ruled out, wrongly in my opinion, for a forward pass.
“I’ll admit that I lost my head with the referee a little and I’m not proud of it.
“Luckily we got that bit of luck at the end. We’ve missed out a few times due to late tries this season, so we really were due one.”
Having finally grabbed their first win, Town travel to Southwell full of confidence.
The eighth-placed hosts have lost three of their six games so far – but did draw 10-10 at fourth-placed West Bridgford last time out.
Spalding make the trip to Notinghamshire without Mike Watts (leg) and Ben Williams (broken thumb), but Cooke is pleased to have some continuity elsewhere.
He added: “Southwell have had a similar start to us and we can certainly go there looking for a win.
“We’ve got a few missing, which has been the case most weeks, but we’ve got a lot of the team that won last week fit.
“Young Taylor Crowson was excellent at ten last week and he’ll have a great chance of starting.”
A win would likely move Town off the bottom.
