WOOTTON Bassett’s players might not have thrown a rugby ball around for a fortnight but captain Tim Gallimore expects them to be in fine fettle when they entertain Reading Abbey this weekend.

Due to Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve falling on Bassett’s training nights, the Ballards Ash outfit have not had a training session since before Christmas but - ahead of their return to Southern Counties North action on Saturday - Gallimore was unfazed.

The Bassett skipper told the Advertiser: “It was tricky with the way Christmas and New Year’s Eve fell because they were our training nights so we haven’t been out on the pitches with the weather as well.

“We’ve done a little bit of gym work over Christmas but every team is going to be in the same boat and all of the other teams would have been struggling as well.

“I don’t see it being too much of a problem. We started pre-season six months ago, everyone knows all the moves and set pieces. It’s just mentally tuning yourself into rugby again. I feel pretty refreshed from having a two-week break and I’m sure the guys have had that chance to rest their bodies.”

Gallimore is asking for nothing less than two victories from his side’s first two games of 2014, both of which are at home against clubs below Bassett in the league table – Reading Abbey and Wallingford.

He’ll have to do so without Jon Clarke, however, with the centre set for another X-ray on a broken arm soon.

“We won the last two before Christmas to give us some breathing space and we don’t want to undo that good work and find ourselves getting dragged back down into the bottom four again,” said Gallimore.

“We can’t look past Reading Abbey, we can’t worry about Wallingford, all we’ve got to look at is this Saturday. We haven’t played for a few weeks and it’s very easy to come out flat and find yourself down early. We’ve got to rev the guys up and start fast.

“We were really poor down at their place. It was easily our worst performance of the season. It was windy, we played uphill in the first half, took the lead and really should have won. We got complacent at half-time and switched off.”