COACH Keith Tomes admits the next five fixtures will shape Swanage & Wareham's South West One East survival bid.

Swans face upcoming clashes with Swindon, Trowbridge, High Wycombe, Windsor and Grove, teams all in the bottom half of the table.

And Tomes says his bottom-of-the-table standings can haul themselves out of trouble despite their latest setback, a 67-7 defeat at Newbury Blues on Saturday.

He told the Daily Echo: "The next five games will be key for us in terms of how the season pans out. We believe they are winnable if we play as well as we can.

"That's our focus now, not what's gone but what's coming.

"If we could finish fourth-from-bottom I'd be confident of survival but these upcoming games will be key.

"If we can get our full-strength side out and the players play to their ability then we won't be far off survival."

Four minutes into the trip to Newbury, Swans hooker Chris Tomes was yellow-carded for a deliberate knock-on and from the resulting penalty a catch-and-drive move allowed the home side to score out wide.

The hosts added a second try soon afterwards and although Swans fought valiantly for the next quarter of an hour, eventually a series of penalties put Newbury in for a further score.

Seventeen points adrift at the interval, the second period started disastrously for the visitors when they were on the wrong end of two converted tries in the first five minutes.

Swans finally got on the scoreboard soon after when a series of pick-and-drive moves enabled prop Gary Smith to force his way over the line.

Phil Graves added the conversion to reduce the advantage to 31-7.

From then on, matters went from bad to worse for Swans, a string of tries towards the end handing the hosts an emphatic win.

Coach Tomes added: "Newbury were a good side and well-drilled.

"A couple of early decisions didn't help us. The sin-bin in the first five minutes was debatable and they scored a try immediately after. A couple of lucky bounces went their way early on.

"All of a sudden we were 17-0 down, confidence wasn't great and heads dropped.

"We were in the game for 20-minute periods and then they scored a couple of quick tries and the scoreboard was much-changed.

"If you make a mistake in this league, leave a little gap or miss a tackle, you get punished."

Elsewhere, Swans II lost 27-0 to Frome II while Swans III were beaten 27-17 by Salisbury III.

Swans I: D Elford, Adkins, Roberts, Graves, Young, Brett, Dennett, Sheldrake, C Tomes, Smith (Wyburgh, 18), Andrews, Hogg, Corsie, Ford, Harwood, Jones.