FREDDIE Gleadowe says ’Stoke deserve to win promotion from London One South – and he has backed the squad to realise their potential by finishing in the top two.

The 20-year-old centre, who has been a regular in the Basingstoke team for the past two seasons, accepts that leaders Chichester may be out of sight but believes that he and his teammates can still earn a play-off spot by finishing second in the table.

“We have got to focus on second and a play-off place now but I think we are one of the best two sides in the division,” he said. “We have got the guys in the club to get that promotion and play a league up.

“We are probably out of the title race now. It depends on Chichester, but having seen their form recently and seen them play on Saturday, they will be difficult to catch.

“There are two key matches left for us now, against Guernsey and Old Elthamians. If we can win those and pick up bonus points elsewhere then we will give ourselves a big chance of going up.

“There is a reason why those sides are up there with us, but if we can play the way we did for the last 60 minutes against Chichester every week there will be no problem.”

’Stoke trail the league leaders by 11 points after losing by a single point in Chichester last week, a game they may well have won had it not been for a poor opening spell.

“Losing at Chichester was a tough pill to swallow because we had a real shot at them and had two very close games against them,” Gleadowe, pictured, said.

“It pointed out the areas we need to work on and showed how good we are. We have been slow out of the blocks a couple of times and I’m not sure why. For me, that is one of the things for us to focus on for the rest of the season, playing from the first whistle and trying to blast sides away early on.”

Next up is a home game against bottom-of-the-table Sutton and Epsom, who have yet to register a single win this season.

Gleadowe said: “Playing a side at the bottom of the table is always a tough environment to go into because everyone is expecting you to win. In a way it’s nice to be the underdogs, because, with nothing to lose, you can throw everything at the other teams and put the pressure on.

“We just need to go out there and put in a performance we know we are capable of. If we do that we should win the game and hopefully pick up a bonus point along the way.”

This season is Gleadowe’s second at Down Grange – and he puts the change in the club’s fortunes down to an improvement in players’ attitude to training.

“There has been a lot of change in personnel at the club and one of the things that has brought is a shift to a better training attitude,” he said. “The numbers there every Tuesday and Thursday reflect that, with at least 30 guys at every session, which makes a big difference.

“It was tough last year but having just come to the club, every game was a chance for me to prove myself. I had never played men’s rugby before so personally I enjoyed playing at such a high standard.”

As a medicine student at the University of Southampton, Cornishman Gleadowe has a limited window to play rugby, with the long hours of a junior doctor waiting just around the corner.

“I know I am not going to be able to play as much as I want in the future, so at the moment it’s a case of trying to cram in as much rugby as possible,” he said. “It’s okay at the moment because in the first two years the course focuses on the science, so we spend a lot of time in lectures and doing lab work rather than being out on placement.”