The Old Boys entertain Cambridge at College Meadow tomorrow (kick-off 2pm) looking for their third league win in a row to extend their unbeaten start in 2018.

They won a hard-fought and incident-packed encounter at Loughborough University last Saturday to move up to sixth place in National One, the highest league position in the club’s 106-year history.

While Howard was delighted with OEs’ 10th victory of the campaign, he also expressed frustration at the manner in which his side almost contrived to throw the game away after leading 22-7 and looking in complete control for almost an hour.

“The first half was one of our best performances of the season,” he said. “But having two players in the sin bin midway through the second half totally changed the game. As we’ve seen time and time again in this league, any team can beat any other. If you are playing with only 14, or even worse 13 players on the field, then it is nigh on impossible to not concede points.

“I’ve talked about it before but little things in matches matter and can be momentum changers - the tee not coming on for Joe’s conversion which would have made it 24-7; not taking pretty much a guaranteed three points from a penalty after we’d already got the bonus point to just keep nudging further ahead; giving a silly penalty away on our line and subsequently going down to 14 men when, actually, conceding a try and having 15 men still on the pitch is a much better option; letting the ball bounce then patting it into their hands and then going down to 13 again. We just have to play much smarter at certain times in the game.

“That said, the boys deserve major credit for digging themselves out of trouble at the end. And for 60 minutes I thought we were absolutely superb. To be fair as well, our discipline generally was very good - we only conceded six penalties in the whole game compared to Loughborough’s 17. But there’s such a small margin for error in this division, it’s the little things that could cost us dear.”

Next up for Howard's men is the visit of ninth placed Cambridge and it’s fair to say, games between the two sides are never dull. In the earlier fixture at Volac Park in September, Elthamians won a thriller, 29-28, after a first half performance which Howard described as “the best half of rugby we’ve produced in my time at the club.” However, OEs then had to withstand a ferocious Cambridge second half fightback to cling on for the narrowest of wins.

The Blood and Sand have not played a league game since before Christmas after their last two fixtures against Darlington Mowden Park and Caldy were postponed, and Howard said: “There’s two ways of looking at that: as we know all too well, not playing for a few weeks can leave you short of match fitness and sharpness so it could be a major plus for us. However, it does mean they probably have a fully fit squad to pick from!

“We know Cambridge are a quality side. They have an impressive away record and have some very, very good players so we will in no way be underestimating them. And my message to our players will be the same: when we are on point and play to our pattern and strengths we are very good. We need to keep 15 men on the pitch and keep to our attacking and defensive structure.”