SWINDON scrum-half Connal Knott has admitted it will be tough to catch run away leaders Chippenham despite their third win on the bounce at the weekend.

Despite being a man light for a large part of the game, after Richard White saw red in the first half, Sean Lynn’s side were just too strong for Maidenhead as they came away with a 23-13 win on the road.

Tries from Tom Mannion and Ben Saville were enough to secure the win to leave them in fourth spot in the South West One East division but Knott admits they could be playing for second place with Chippenham still unbeaten at the top of the league.

“Chippenham are going to run away with the league now but we are three points off second spot,” said the scrum-half.

“The thing is with Chippenham they have come down a level and we weren’t that far away from Chippenham the last time we played them.

“We made a few errors and they made no errors and that is the margins, if you make two errors and they make none then they are going to capitalise on your errors.

“It is experience at the end of the day.

“They have come down from a higher league and they have played there for a couple of seasons now and they play that style of rugby for a length of time.

“They should run away with the league really but we are not that far off and I believe as a squad we are quite close to them.”

Swindon started the game on Saturday slowly as they ran off the Christmas turkey to get the new year under way.

The win puts them seven points clear of Newbury Blues who they face this weekend and Knott hopes that it will provide a good stepping stone into the second half of the season.

“They were not a bad side Maidenhead but they didn’t really have anything to frighten us with even though we were a man down, and at some points two men down.

“We got that first half under our belts and got the rustiness out of us and it kind of came together in the second half after that.

“In the second half we just controlled the possession well and gave very little possession away, which was key.

“It is a good starting block for the year because it puts us in contention.”