Two months into their first ever season in National One and the club have got to grips with life in the third tier of English rugby, sitting comfortably in eighth place with five wins and a draw from their first 11 games.

They gave unbeaten league leaders Coventry the fright of their lives in their last outing at College Meadow two weeks ago before going down by just four points, and there’s no doubt their progress so far has exceeded the expectations of even the most optimistic Elthamians supporters.

But while Howard is satisfied with the way the side have recovered from a slow start, he has set his sights higher and believes a place in the top six by Christmas is not an unrealistic target.

“Personally, I would like to be a couple of places higher at this stage,” he said. “But I think the performances have been as you’d expect going into a new league with some new players - a couple of bad performances, mostly good and some outstanding.

"Even in our worst performance of the season against Ampthill we created a lot of chances but didn’t take them. The players are now fully up to speed with the demands and physicality of this league and in the matches against Plymouth and Coventry we have shown we are a match for anyone."

He continued: “Most coaches say they never look further than the next game, but I’m afraid I do! We are targeting the next five weeks leading up to Christmas - I think all those games are winnable and it would be great to be in the top six by the Christmas break. But, and I can’t stress this enough, we are also only too aware that any team in this league is capable of beating anyone else and we are facing five good teams. If you are not on top of your game or become over-confident, you will get beaten.

“With the squad we have in place and the work we did in the pre-season, my aim was for, and still is, a top four finish. I know this is very ambitious but if we aim for that and come up short we will still be finishing in the top half which would be an excellent achievement in the club’s first year in this league.”

National One has been a steep learning curve for everyone involved with the first team squad, according to Howard, who believes the Coventry display proved that not only are the players adjusting to life at the higher level but also the coaches who are reaping the rewards from their commitment to the expansive, high tempo style of rugby that has served the club so well in the last two seasons.

“National One is as tough as I expected it to be,” Howard said. “The most obvious difference at this level is the physicality of the game as all the players are so much more powerful. There seems to be much more of a desire to keep hold of the ball and play attacking rugby which is a positive.

"As a coach you are constantly trying to improve and learn and the hardest part is empowering players and listening to what they want as ultimately they are the ones on the pitch making decisions, whilst also making sure you and the players know what you expect of them on and off the pitch.

“The most pleasing thing for me about the Coventry game was that it showed we are moving in the right direction as a coaching team and it vindicated what we are trying to do. Watching the video back reaffirmed it even more as we actually created six clear overlaps which we didn’t execute. That is something we will obviously work on in training, but creating these chances is much harder than taking them so to do that against the best team in the league is most encouraging.

“I’ve never had doubts about the quality of the squad, but when you play badly or things aren’t going to plan I always look at myself first and question what I’m doing just because you always want the team to be improving. I think this can be both a strength and weakness: it’s good to be retrospective and look to improve but I think as a head coach you have to have tremendous self-belief in what you are doing."

Howard admits it was vital for the side to bounce back quickly from the disappointing performance at Ampthill and he was delighted with the way the players responded against Coventry. “After the Ampthill game, we spent the majority of the week on how we were going to play in both attack and defence rather than focusing on Coventry," he said. "The poor performance at Ampthill probably gave us even more focus as the players knew they had underperformed and the boys coming up from the Extras all had a point to prove. And, boy, did they!

"I thought our defence was outstanding, the boys stuck to the plan Liffy [Aaron Liffchak] has put in place and it worked. In attack our kicking game was the best it’s been all season and our ball retention was great. It proves if we stick to what we set out to do, the game plan in attack and defence works!”