Pressure builds as Greens receive injury blow

SKIPPER Tom Foster admits the pressure of being leaders of the pack is starting to tell on Scunthorpe RUFC as the season reaches its conclusion.

The Greens captain expects his players to recover from last week's defeat at Derby and edge closer to sealing promotion when Dunstablians visit Heslam Park tomorrow.

However, they will have to do so without the services of 'talisman' Rewiti Vaimoso.

The Kiwi winger will be out for up to four weeks with a broken collarbone after playing through the pain in Saturday's 21-3 reverse.

"He carried on playing and was just complaining of pain in his shoulder after," said Foster.

"He went for an X-ray the next day and obviously found it was broken.

"He's our talisman, our 'go to' man and our top try scorer.

"But it gives an opportunity for someone else to come in."

Foster is looking for a response from his team after a, relatively speaking, little dip of two games without a win.

Second-placed Derby closed the gap to a point with their victory, but a game in hand means the Greens remain very much in control.

"I don't know if subconsciously we've got one eye on promotion because we're at the top of the table," Foster conceded.

"We haven't been playing to our potential.

"Perhaps the pressure is getting to people a little bit.

"It's a bit similar to our experience last year when we were in a good position to get promoted and didn't.

"Hopefully we can use that experience.

"It was a very disappointing result on Saturday. But, having said that, Derby were very good on the day and they did deserve to win it in the end.

"It's difficult because after such a bad result, confidence will be down a little bit.

"You are naturally going to be on a bit of a low after having had such a successful season so far.

"We do know we're not reaching the peaks of earlier in the season. We seem to be playing within ourselves at the minute.

"We've just got to express ourselves in the next four games.

"We've got to win our next four games to get promoted, so we know what we need to do.

"They are all winnable games, so we're just concentrating on each game as it comes.

"On paper they are four games we should win, so we're still in the driving seat.

"We've just got to make sure the pressure doesn't get to us."

Tim Robinson's men will also be without Dave Garbutt for the next two weeks, but Foster expects them to get one step closer to their target against 10th-placed Dunstablians.

"We're unbeaten at Heslam Park this year and I'm very confident we can get the results we need," he said.

"Generally speaking they are a very good team at home but they don't tend to travel very well.

"We've beaten them quite comfortably at our place over the last couple of seasons."