SWINDON College Old Boys head coach Mark Lea insists no heads have dropped in his squad despite having failed to pick up a win so far in Southern Counties North.

College, who were promoted to the division in the summer, may have not picked a victory this season, but have come away with six bonus points from their opening seven games.

The side sit bottom of the table after a points deduction for fielding an ineligible player, but Lea is confident a win is just around the corner, with tomorrow’s home fixture against Stow-on-the-Wold a game they have targeted.

“The mood in the camp is good,” he said.

“Despite the run of results, the belief in the team and, in fact, us coaches too, has been that we are close to turning these close games into wins.

“Inevitably managing players is more difficult in a team that is not winning but on the whole things are looking OK.

“Stow are good, or just OK, depending on the availability of their farming and student players.

“Recently they have picked up a couple of wins so we need to approach this as a really tough game and get our defence going, before earning the right to play against them.

“They always have a very good kicker who will punish any ill-discipline from our team so we need to be mindful of that also.”

College, who were without a host of players for last weekend’s 35-0 defeat to Reading Abbey, welcome back centres Matty Allen and Tucker Blinkhorn, while returning prop Thomas Birnie will replace the unavailable Liam Davis.

Lea knows the importance of getting the first win of the season and knows his side need to learn to win at this level.

“Bobbi Tinning has unfortunately been ruled out for the season but on the whole we are looking much stronger than last week,” he added. “We are home, we have a good squad available and Stow are only two places above us in the league .

“A win is really needed.

“The lads need to see that we can get wins at this level - we have been within the losing bonus point range for many games this season “We need to show a maturity to take points when they are available and slowly break teams down whilst at the same time keep things tight in defence.

“I was proud of the lads last week and have confidence in them this week.”

Meanwhile, Swindon travel to third-from-bottom Reading looking to bring to an end a four game run without a win.