MAIDENHEAD arrived at Devizes intent on allaying any relegation fears they had in South West 1 East.

Devizes gave starts to Josh Gould at blindside flanker and gave a debut to George Smith at hooker. Chris Lewis made his first start since October at tighthead. Andy Thompson returned at fly half, and Mark Carter returned in the centres from injury.

From the off Devizes were playing with confidence and belief and on a number of occasions in the first quarter made some searing breaks in the backs with Thompson and winger Jorge Wadman looking threatening throughout.

With Devizes on the front foot, with some hard carries from the pack, the ball was whipped out wide and Wadman went over in the corner. Centre Rory Brown missed the difficult conversion.

Devizes continued at a good intensity and Maidenhead, falling foul of the referee’s whistle started to become frustrated and a continued period of dominance saw Lewis drive over for an unconverted score to make it 10-0.

The visitors came back into it almost immediately with a push over try from a rolling maul which was unconverted to make it 10-5.

Then perhaps the most controversial moment in the match saw Maidenhead fly half Steve Moir shown a straight red card for throwing a punch at Devizes openside flanker Craig Bryant. Now Devizes had the ascendancy in numbers and gaps opened up in the visitors defence, which allowed Thompson to waltz through to score out wide. The extras were added.

Despite going down in numbers Maidenhead battled well, keeping the ball in the tight throughout. A number of offences crept into Devizes’ game and Maidenhead pinned the Saddlebacks down into their own corner, only for Lewis to bring down a rolling maul to even up the numbers to fourteen a piece. From the resulting period of pressure, the visitors went over out wide to bring the scores to 17-10 at the break.

The visitors battled well after the break as a poor third quarter from Devizes saw Maidenhead score two quick tries to go into a 20-17 lead, before Maids hooker Lewis Jones was sin binned reducing the visitors to 13 men.

Devizes took full advantage of the space as Chris Barted showed good gas to go over before converting his own try.

Shortly after this, Wadmanmanaged to brush through a couple of cover tackles after running in from 40 metres to make it 29-20.

The Saddlebacks look as if they would continue to open up the Maids defence further, however, the visitors to their credit continued to compete well and were duly rewarded for their efforts with a converted penalty kick in the final moments to seal a losing bonus point making it 29-23.