After four seasons of progress, Wallingford appear to have hit the buffers in 2009-10.

Winning the Oxfordshire Shield in 2006 was followed by two straight promotions and a highly creditable mid-table finish in South West 2 last year.

Now after four straight defeats in the new South West 1 East division, they are encountering a spot of adversity, but coach Chris Norrington is not panicking just yet.

He said: “We are missing key players like Jackson Sayce (injury) and Mike Turner (work commitments), who win you tight games.

“The commitment was there on Saturday, but we couldn’t go through our phases.

“These things are not quite going our way at the moment.

“We have had a good run of it in past seasons. The key thing now is to get a few players back and get a couple of wins.

“We have got to stay in this league, but we should do that comfortably.”

Wallingford’s poor run has not been helped by a lack of fly halves to control the game.

Sayce and Olli Henderson, for example, were both missing through injury on the touchline in Saturday’s defeat to Swanage.

Norrington said: “We won the Swanage game last year by a point, but we had a very different team.

“It is definitely down to the numbers. The back line has been different by four to five players each week and no team will cope well with that.

“We are working hard in training.”

Wallingford, meanwhile, have signed a one-season sponsorship deal with The Old Post Office – a pub and restaurant in the town.

The Old Post Office’s name appears on Wallingford’s shirts and it will host the club’s fundraising dinner.