Despite shading the first forty and going in leading at the break, Cambridge contrived to surrender the second half to third-bottom Richmond. A stunning start saw Ruaridh Dawson burst through a winning line out to dive over. Otu Mausia hit the upright with the conversion. And whilst Richmond hit back almost immediately through the lively Chidera Obonna, the line out proved an effective weapon for the visitors in the early exchanges with Ed Timpson peeling off and through for a second. Kicking duties passed to Dawson, who duly dispatched the extras. Jason Baggott pulled another back for Richmond, 8 minutes before half time, and the scores were tied by Callum Grieve’s place kick. But Dawson stroked over a penalty from in front of the posts for the lead as the teams headed into the sheds.
Head Coach Craig Newby felt, though, his side hadn’t done enough in that first half, saying “I thought we started really well, played a really mature game, kicked well and put pressure on with a really good try. But after that we created four opportunities. I think we blew them all – it was nice to be creating opportunities but, deep down, my experience told me that against Richmond, and away from home, we were going to rue those missed opportunities – and we did.”
Obonna added another – also converted – almost immediately after the break. further Cambridge pressure led to a penalty try with half an hour to go. Then the wheels well and truly came off as Luc Jones and then Greg Kitson extended the hosts’ lead. The coup de grace was supplied by former Cambridge prop Seb Brownhill with 9 minutes left as he burrowed over from another winning line out.
Summng up the second half, Newby said, “We started quite well but ended up chasing the game into the wind away from home – we’re down on our luck and they’re coming home strong. I wouldn’t say it fell apart but there were certainly disappointing aspects, in that for the last 20 minutes we couldn’t get out of our own half, and when we did we again made mistakes. We scored – we’ve got a penalty try from from good work – but it was just disappointing.
“We’ll go back to the drawing board as a staff group and see what we can do. I know the players talked in their huddle around looking at themselves and what they did – we can only try and get better. We’ve got no choice. We’ve got Pirates next Saturday at home then there’s a little little bit of a break and then pretty tough block to come – so we’ve got no choice but to try and get better and try and remember these learnings, these feelings and stick together. It was Ed Timpson‘s last came for us. He’s off back to Los Angeles to the MLR, so we wish him all the best. He’s been excellent for us so we’re sad to see him leave. He’s had a big influence on our team. The biggest positive today is celebrating with him. No one enjoys a war do they? We’re losing some battles but we will keep keep moving forward as much as we can”.
Scorers
Richmond
Tries – Obonna (8, 42), Baggott (32), Jones (55), Kitson (60), Brownhill (71)
Conversions – Grieve (33, 43, 56, 61)
Cambridge
Tries – Dawson 4, Timpson 12, penalty try (51)
Conversion – Dawson (13)
Penalty – Dawson (40)
Teams
Richmond
Grieve, Obonna, Case, Baggott, Kitson, Burrage, Jones; Bevacqua, Goffey, Spring, Monson, Nugent, benson, Cardew, Pim
Bench – Hocking, Brownhill, Wakeling, Hastings, charles, Dennett, Du Randt
Cambridge
Currie, Green, Reweti, Sorrell, Caven, Mausia, Dawson; Ellwood, Doorey-Palmer, Walker, Fulford, McCay, Thomas, Eckersley (C), Timpson
Reinforcements – Irvine, Maka, Masoe, Baxter, Mills, Rokodrava, Thompson, Annand