LUCTONIANS maintained their unbeaten start to the season last weekend with a 66-5 win over Macclesfield to bolster their title credentials.
Prop and former captain Joe White, 27, believes this result shows a continued improvement in performances from his side as they look ahead to the rest of the season.
Such a blistering start left Luctonians top of National Two West after five rounds, although White insists that at this stage performances are more important than league position after the West Midlanders fell just short of last season’s title to Dings Crusaders.
He told The Rugby Paper: “We never like to look too far into the future. Like last year we never said that we were chasing promotion, it’s just how we ended up. We always take it week by week, look at our opposition and how we want to get better, just keep improving rather than setting a half-season or full-season goal.
“We developed that a few years ago as a club. If we can focus on what we can do to get better, rather than just purely focusing on results, it drives our standards within to just keep on getting better rather than focusing on just trying to win or on promotion. What we’ve learned over the years is if we focus on ourselves and the next week in front of us rather than looking four or five games ahead, it’s massive for us and our development.”
The tighthead enjoyed a stand-out campaign last season, earning a place in National League Rugby’s Two West Dream Team.
Alongside this performance-first mindset, White explains the importance of a wider squad mentality.
He said: “We’ve always been a club rather than a team. You come down to a training session on a Tuesday and there’s boys fully going at each other, people want to be in that squad. Everybody knows that it’s not just 20 blokes that are going to be selected every week, every shirt is up for grabs every week. It is really good for us, it keeps our training standard much higher.”
This squad mentality stretches beyond the senior set-up, with the club ensuring a clear pathway between the youth and adult teams.
He added: “It’s massive for those younger lads that are coming through into the first team to see that there is progression, even at this level of club. You can play a decent level of rugby, you don’t have to go to the right school or the right academy to get into a National League squad, you can work your way into it.
“It breeds a good atmosphere within the club that if you do come through that youth system, you’re not just going to be churned out for someone that’s been brought in, you are going to have the time spent on you to make you a better player to fill that position. I think that’s really big for us as a club to keep producing our own talent rather than looking elsewhere for it.”
