A FOURTH-placed finish in South West 1 East has surpassed the expectations of everyone at Swindon Rugby Club this season.

A 27-16 victory at Buckingham on the final day of the season made sure the club finished in a place they had held for much of the season, and showed there are already solid foundations for next season.

Coach Neil Loader admitted the club did not expect to be challenging near the top of the league, but was proud of what he and his players had managed to achieve over the 26 games.

“It is incredible really, we just came into this league and at the beginning of it we would have been happy to finish one point above the relegation places,” he said.

“But to go on and have a year like this is an amazing achievement I think.

“We have the second highest points for total in the league and the top two highest match scores, which demonstrates just how good we have been.

“I suppose when we came into it the league was a bit of an unknown entity, but we saw how well Witney and Amersham & Chiltern did when they came up the year before, and we knew it could be done because we had played well against them the previous season.

“But saying that, the top four was a little bit beyond our expectations.

With fly-half Adam Westall pulling the strings, Swindon played expansive rugby throughout the season as they made their mark on the division, and Loader believes this was key to their success.

“The key is that the players have bought into everything, and that we played a style of rugby which is quite high risk. We did leak a few points but we scored a lot too,” he said.

“We wanted to play our style, and we stuck to that, and if teams let us play rugby then we would cause them a lot of problems, but if they put us under pressure at the breakdown then we would have problems.”

Loader and his coaching team are already starting to plan for next season, and the coach believes there is room for progress.

“We have a good base to work from really, and we have targeted a few people to come in while a few players could be coming back to the club.

“We will lose some to university and travelling and that sort of thing, but I think we will be okay.

“We will meet as a group of coaches soon to get some plans firmly in place, while we are also looking into the possibility of going to Italy or Switzerland for a training camp which I am sure will help.”