SWINDON College Old Boys director of rugby Martin Lloyd knows that his depleted team face an uphill struggle on Saturday but that won’t prevent them from taking a shot at upsetting the odds.

College, who are winless at the bottom of the Southern Counties North division, make the trip to Berkshire to take on third-placed Reading Abbey, who have only tasted defeat once in their five league outings so far this season.

Michael Calvert, Matt Allen, Greg O’Brien, Ross Saville and Bruce Vuetanatotoka will all be missing for Lloyd’s side against Reading but the visitors do welcome back leading points-scorer Charlie Grabe as they look to flip the formbook on its head.

“Reading are one of the teams that came up with us (from the Bucks/Berks & Oxon Premier) last season – they beat us twice and they’re a good team,” said Lloyd.

“It’s going to be really tough. We look strong in the forwards but we’re much-diminished in the backs.

“With so many players out, we’re going to have to bring a few guys up from the seconds on Saturday and see if we can get something by the end of the afternoon.

“We do have Charlie Grabe coming back and that’s a big boost.

“He’s a wing and he’s our top try-scorer, so we’ll be looking for him to get on the scoresheet.

“He also takes our kicks too, so he’s our top points-scorer too – he’s a good player.

“We’re also looking for another good performance from Kalum House at number eight.

“He’s come back from a knee reconstruction and he’s started to get back to the level that we know that he’s capable of.

“If you look at the league table, we’ve conceded more points than anyone else but we’re still one of the highest scorers.

“We’re a side that’s always going to score points but sometimes, we’re our own worst enemies – we’ll give it a go on Saturday and see what we can do.”

Elsewhere, Swindon go looking to bring their three-match losing run in South West One East to an end when they host Witney.