TEAM spirit is high amongst Swindon’s players after a resilient showing last weekend secured them their third win of the season.

Swindon will now travel to Newbury Blues hoping to continue their fine form – but scrum-half Connal Knott knows his team face their sternest test yet.

After going down to 13 men for the last quarter of the game last time out against Maidenhead, the Greenbridge Road side had to dig deep to claim a 25-13 win and showed a fighting spirit that could help them as the weather starts to change for the worse.

“Three wins on the bounce is obviously a good start,” said Knott.

“In training, we will just stick to what we normally do. We will run through our plays and we will trust our own game.

“We were down to 13 men for about 20 minutes after one of our players got a second yellow card and we defended our hearts out.

“We have now shown we can defend like that and it says a lot for the team spirit.

“We had a few changes in the close season and have had a couple of players coming back so we didn’t know how we would start, to be fair.”

Swindon, coached by Sean Lynn, have made a terrific start to the season and sit top of the South West One East division after claiming maximum points in all three of their games.

Newbury also boast a 100 per cent record going into the game but, having only claimed one bonus point victory, sit two points behind their rivals.

Swindon enjoy playing a running style of rugby which is best suited to dry conditions, which is why they will be relieved to face Newbury, a team Knott cannot remember beating, early on.

“I think the key thing is our style of rugby - it suits this league and if we keep playing that style of running rugby, we can do well,” he added.

“We haven’t really been tested yet this season so this weekend will be good to see where we are at.

“Newbury is a difficult place to go. We always get beaten there.

“If we can go away and get a good win there, then that sets us up well for the season.

“It is still early days and the table doesn’t really start to show until week six or seven because everyone is still trying to find their feet.

“We have always played Newbury, it seems, when it has been raining so it is good that we face them early in the season.

“But they will be difficult to beat.”