On a thoroughly disappointing afternoon in West London, Cambridge couldn’t get over the line for that first win of term against a London Scottish side determined to extend the gap between the two sides at the bottom of the Champ table. Bryan Redpath’s side took the spoils on the day, edging the kick chase battle and putting together enough flowing moves to beat off the visitors’ resistance – Cambridge took two of the few chances afforded them in a dour game to set up another ‘must win’ tie against Caldy at Ellgia Fields next Saturday.
Scottish took the lead early doors from a line out and subsequent driving maul through hooker Harry Clayton. Half way through the half Otu Mausia ended up in the sin bin for a poor tackle and Scottish quickly banged the ball across field for Guy Rogers to touch down with Cambridge scratching their heads.
The lead was cut by Charlie Robson, who finished in the corner with aplomb. Ruaridh Dawson edged the attempted extras wide. Then Josh Bellamy added a penalty two minutes before the break and, in response, Cambridge failed to get the rub of the green on a driving maul, so it was 13-5 going into the sheds at the break.
After half time, Rogers got over the line again to stretch the lead. Cambridge had to wait until the 73rd minute for a bit of cunning from Joe Green to unlock the hosts back door with a cheeky grubber, ruthlessly pursued by the on-rushing Ben Currie. And Scottish, having weathered the storm as the visitors chased a losing bonus point, got over for their TBP immediately after Currie’s score through Noah Ferdinand.
Head Coach Craig Newby was philosophical after the reverse at the RAG, saying “We put ourselves in the right position at halftime at 13-5. I thought it was disappointing that we didn’t get much out of the referee just before halftime – and we switched off for their second try. Take those couple of moments out, you know, and we were in an arm wrestle and it was okay. .We talked at half-time that we wanted to win this game into two ways: one is winning the kicking battle – the second thing was around our power in the scrum. We got some pay-off from that but not enough.We carried well but just not often enough, so, yeah, disappointing. We got ourselves back to 20-10 with a few minutes to go- they kick the ball off and they get a line out and then score another. We have an no excuse culture so we’ll have some deep dark conversations with each each other. We don’t give up – our culture is around being a good team mate and doing the right thing and being positive. That’ll happen despite today’s result. We’ve got 11 games left – that’s 11 times five equals 55 points left to play for. There’s still games to win, points to collect. Scottish could have a run of losses and if we pick up a couple of wins we’re back in it, so we will remain positive as much as we can. We’ll be looking for more of an emotional response against Caldy next week. I really respect Caldy – I like what they do – and I think they’re a great club so, yeah, they’ll be a challenge for us, but if we roll up and do some some of the good stuff we can win that game. If we don’t, then we’ll get rolled over.”
HT 13-5 FT 27-10
Attendance 698
Referee Jonathan Cook
Scorers
London Scottish
Tries – Clayton 4, Rogers 10, 56, Ferdinand 76
Conversions – Bellamy 57, 77
Penalty – Bellamy 38
Cambridge
Tries – Robson 31, Currie 73
Teams
London Scottish
Bellamy, Ferdinand, Talbot-Davies, McCallum, Rogers, Wilstead,, Law; Lindsay, Clayton, Dimen, Wilkinson, Browne, Spurway, Ranson (C), Marshall
Replacments – Wright, Prior, Bentley, Vukasinovic, Huis, Kerins, Honey, Lloyd-Seed
Cambridge
Currie, Qaniuci, Reweti, Rokodrava, Robson, Mausia, Dawson; Ellwood, Doorey-Palmer, Walker, Fulford, McCay, Adams (C), Eckersley, Timpson
Reinforcements – Irvine, Boal, Wulf-Masoe, Lawrence, Thomas, Thompson, Sorrell, Green