SWINDON skipper Adam Westall admitted his side have plenty of head scratching to do over the Christmas period following their 40-5 defeat away at Maidenhead.

The Greenbridge Road side never got going in Berkshire against a team who now sit just a point behind them in the South West 1 East table, with Connal Knott scoring their only try in a contest in which Swindon also saw Ben Saville sent off.

Westall knows his side need to improve when they return to action in January if they are to again challenge for promotion and was disappointed to let stalwart Paul Wakefield leave on a losing note as he prepares to move on to Nottingham.

“Games around Christmas are always tough in terms of mindset because people have their minds on other things at times, but we are a pretty committed side and we would have expected to do better.

“We probably let Paul (Wakefield) down a little to be honest because we wanted to send him off with a win.

“It’s something to chew on over Christmas and it will stick for a while, so hopefully we can kick on after Christmas because last year we were pretty poor.

“We had two yellow cards and a red as well which didn’t help because we had 14 or 13 players a lot of the time, while our accuracy is off a little bit.

“We’re not working as a 15 at the moment and the forwards are struggling with their lineouts too but we are working to fix it as a group.”

The defeat leaves Swindon fourth in the table, 18 off top spot, as they take a break before returning to action at home to Marlow on January 4.