ROYAL Wootton Bassett head coach Alan Low says there is plenty to be joyful about despite heading into the Christmas break on the back of a fourth consecutive defeat.

Bassett slipped to a 32-17 defeat at home to Newbury Blues as they continue to fall down the South West One East league table despite tries from Tom Fieldsend and David Hogg, who also kicked two conversions and a penalty.

A spate of yellow cards in the first half, which saw them down to just 12 men on the pitch for a period, condemned the hosts, while both sides finished with 14 men as Will Hooper and a Newbury winger saw red.

However, with a string of injuries to key personnel, the Bassett head coach was not despondent by his side’s display and praised the fight shown in what should have been a closer contest.

“Our performance was a lot better than what it has been for the last couple of weeks, we managed to get a lot more intensity into our game,” he said.

“I think, take our yellow cards out of the equation – we had three yellow cards and that put us down to 12 men at one point and I think they scored 14 points during that period – it would have been a fairly tight game.

“Our discipline was the same the week before at Grove, we gave 19 penalties away there which took the wind out of our sails.

“We said discipline at the breakdown was going to be key for us at the weekend and I think we only gave four penalties away in the second half but it was the first half that killed us.

“It was silly really and we have got to look at ourselves and why we are giving that penalty count away.

“For the side we had out, with the injuries we have got at the moment, I thought the lads did brilliantly.”

Bassett have been handed an injury boost heading into the three-week break over Christmas, with Tim Gallimore and Elye Darragh both informed that they are only looking at six weeks out with their respective injuries.

With Alex Norcross also out with a broken hand, Low has said the pause in action has come at a good time and hopes they can pick up where they started the season at the turn of the year.

“We’ve been fairly lucky with injuries so far this year and they all seem to have come at once,” added Low.

“Hopefully the break has come at the right time. We’ll keep them ticking over in the gym and get a few of these bodies back together.

“We’ve had a great start to the year and we just want to pick it up again and finish the season how we started it.

“Hopefully we’ll get the injuries cleared up and be able to start pushing again.”