Geoff Wappett is looking for a strong end to the season from his battle-weary Macclesfield players.
The Blues coach could only watch as his side ran in four tries but lost at Blackheath and, ahead of taking on title hopefuls Ealing, Wappett has asked for one last push before the summer.
"It’s a 30-game season and at this level our squad is too small, too many of our players have played too much rugby," he said. "The season’s probably gone on a bit too long for us, a lot of them looked tired on Saturday.
"I’m conscious, especially when the sun’s out, that when there’s no danger of relegation sometimes we need to light a fire in them, because it’s easy for the mind to wander towards the beach."
Four straight defeats have seen Macclesfield edged out of the top five in National League One by Blackheath and Wappett admits he’s disappointed with the Blues’ crawl towards the finish line but that it has been an essentially successful season.
"On Saturday we had two players sin-binned within a few minutes of each other, so we played a portion of the game with 13 men and to score four tries to get a bonus point is a positive," he added. "We stuck at it, we were 21-3 down at one point, and our set-piece was very disappointing. When your lineout and scrum is going astray it makes it very difficult.
"Recent weeks haven’t been so good but we’re still in sixth, because we’ve gathered a lot of points elsewhere.
"We’ve still got a lot of spirit in the squad and it would be nice to finish the season on a high, that’s what you take into the summer and what you remember when you report back for pre-season training.
"We’ll have a light week’s work because we want to save every bit of energy we’ve got left, we gave Ealing a beating down there so it should be tough but an interesting game."
