SWINDON captain Mike Thompson has urged his players not to concern themselves with what is happening elsewhere after seeing his side record a third successive victory.

Yet, despite beating eighth-placed Reading Abbey 33-18, Swindon remain 12th in South West One East, with things becoming increasingly tight in the bottom half of the table.

With Reading cut adrift at the foot of the table, only three points separate Oxford Harlequins in 13th and the team the Greenbridge Road men vanquished at the weekend.

“It really is a bit too tight for my liking,” Thompson said. “But all we can do is keep winning our matches.

“If we do that, then we should be okay because we have still got to play some of those teams around us and I have told the boys to focus on ourselves.

“I’m not the greatest of talkers. This is my ninth year at the club, my first as first team captain and I just try and get the boys to follow my lead.”

Swindon raced into the lead at Greenbridge Road, with three of their five tries coming in the opening quarter.

And the back row forward was delighted that his side made such a quick start.

“Once you get three tries in the opening 20 minutes, it is very difficult for any side, at any level, to comeback,” Thompson said.

“It was really pleasing to see us make such a quick start as we have been struggling with that.

“There was a period in the game where we fell away a little, but that start really did give us a good platform to build.”

Despite building up a head of steam with three wins in a row, Thompson thinks that having this Saturday off will benefit his players.

“At the start of the season, it was tough for us,” the Swindon captain said. “We had a lot of new players, we had injuries and unavailabilities.

“Now we are gelling as a team and getting our players back, we are starting to see the results.

“We are still going to be in this week. We have got the footage from the Reading game to go through so we can see what areas we need to improve on.”