RUGBY TOWN: Weather puts a dampener on Valley's promotion surge

Rugby Town's promotion endeavours suffered a wash-out over the last week, after both their scheduled fixtures were postponed due to waterlogged pitches, writes Jon Venner.

Trips to Wellingborough at the weekend and Tuesday evening's game at Rothwell both fell foul of the effects of Storm Dennis, so Valley will be hoping for better luck this Saturday when they are due in Leicestershire to face Oadby in the UCL Premier.

Elsewhere in division, only two games survived the weekend and midweek schedules, but in one of those Town lost their place at the top of the table after Loughborough University's 3-1 home success over Rugby's hosts this Saturday.

Loughborough's win gave them a two point advantage over Town having now completed the same number of games, with third place Quorn trailing Carl Adams's side on goal difference only - also from 25 games played.

Fourth placed Shepshed's hopes of closing the gap on the top three were ruined when their home match against Wellingborough was abandoned in its early stages after a hailstorm brought a halt to proceedings, with Holbeach and Deeping in 5th and 6th in the current rankings still very much in the mix for a top two potential promotion spot.

Valley cruised to a 4-0 win in the reverse fixture between this weekend's teams just before Christmas at Butlin Road, with goals from Lee Thomas, Ryan Seal (2) and James Hancocks seeing them home.

Adams's main injury worry entering the final third of the campaign continues to centre on last season's player of the year Charlie Evans, who has missed the last three games with damaged ankle ligaments.

The Valley boss had been operating with a basic sixteen man squad before Evans's injury, although he has been able to restore it to this level again with the return to the fold of captain Loyiso Recci's brother Omar.

Adams has no plans to bring in new recruits as it currently stands. He explained: "Whilst we are quite tight on numbers, we will run with what we have for now.

"The trouble is when you have an 18 player plus squad, it becomes very difficult to keep everyone happy and those not playing leave quickly anyway.

"If we got a couple of more injuries then of course we would look to bring in someone to cover for this, but in the mean time I'm happy with what we have here and the form we are showing at the moment - unless someone significantly better than what we have here becomes available."

Rugby's 2-0 home victory over Harborough last time out meant it is 30 points from the last 36 for them, as they look to lift themselves back into step four of the non-league pyramid at the third attempt.

# The postponed fixtures at Wellingborough and Rothwell have both already been rearranged, with Town set to visit the Dog and Duck Stadium on Tuesday March 24th and then face the Corinthians on Tuesday April 7th.