EDDIE GOOBY was delighted with his side's return to action in 2015 after the 56-0 demolition of Braintree, but has admitted his team are in unknown territory going into the latter stages of the season top of the table.
Chelmsford made the perfect return to league action after the Christmas break to remain top of the London Two North East but, with less than ten games left, director of coaching Gooby knows teams will be targeting them.
"That's a problem for us because that's foreign to the players," said Gooby. "We've not been in this situation before so we're learning all the time and having to face tough challenges mentally.
"Teams are going to target us and they'll up their games and try to do things we're not used to so it will be very interesting in the next few weeks to say the least.
"The boys are pumped at the moment though and four or five players have come back from long-term injuries as well so our strength in depth is a bit better than before Christmas."
There was one concern for Gooby after the Braintree match as they lost second-row Simon Quinn to a dislocated knee.
"Unfortunately for us it was dampened by a severe injury to Simon, so we've lost him now for the rest of the season and maybe full-time, we don't know what he will do."
Despite the injury, Gooby couldn't have been more happy with the performance against Braintree to set them in good stead for tough games ahead.
"We know Braintree are trying to rebuild so we tried to take advantage of it and do what we had to do, which we did," he said. "We played some very good rugby on Saturday in the conditions as it was very windy and damp.
"I must admit to come back and play this game against Braintree, who are struggling, was going to give us some confidence and blow away a few cobwebs to then hopefully move on to bigger challenges like this weekend against Norwich.
"It's going to be a real tough one there because we just about beat them at home so they're going to be pumped and raring to go against us.
"Norwich have sort of fallen away a bit but then we've got a couple of big games against the likes of Campion and Saffron Walden after that so this period for us is very important but we'll just do our best."
