WITH Devizes’ hopes of retaining their place in South West level rugby resting in the lap of the gods, skipper Julian Taylor says that his team simply need to concentrate on scrapping for every point available between now and the end of the season.

Devizes gave their chances of beating the drop a shot in the arm with a hard-fought 29-23 victory against Maidenhead last weekend but they still remain in the bottom two, four points behind 12th-placed Buckingham.

The Saddlebacks, who are in the midst of their second-ever campaign in South West One East, have four games of their season remaining. Flanker Taylor, who missed the Maidenhead triumph as he recovered from a concussion, reckons that he and his team-mates can only worry about themselves as the season nears its conclusion.

“We’ve got games against three teams in the top seven and they could be playing for nothing more than league position – we’ve got something to play for,” said Taylor.

“I know that Towcester are second but Chippenham are running away with it and they might have nothing to play for when we play them (on April 18).

“It’s obviously going to be very tough, especially after the season we’ve had.

“We’ve lost a considerable amount of games and it’s been difficult with the injuries and work commitments that players have had, and not playing on our main pitch.

“But nobody’s given up this season. When people have been missing, they’ve not walked away. They’ve kept fighting.

“We have to keep fighting until the end of the season. I don’t know how many are going to go down but if it’s two, we’ve got a good chance and if it’s three, then we’ve got a mathematical chance, even if we’d need to win all our games.

“We’re in a tough league where you can win 40 per cent of your games and get relegated – in the league below, you can win three games and stay up.

“Wherever we end up, we know that we’ve won a few games in the last few weeks and hopefully we can build on a good end to the season.”

Chippenham remained on course for the South West One East title as they beat Newbury Blues 39-20 and are eight points clear at the top.