The game kicks off at The Mennaye Field on Saturday 15th November with an early kick off time of 1pm.
Forwards coach Will Britton says “It was a disappointing day against Richmond last Saturday – for the players, for the wider squad, for the staff, for the supporters and for the Club. We do, though, have a fantastic opportunity now to go down to Pirates this weekend and deliver a performance to be proud of. Whilst our line out has been functioning well this season, we can’t let those positives, those stats, obscure the fact that we’ve been making too many unforced errors in other areas and we’ve been working hard this week to cut those out. We need to have high standards in all areas of our game. We spent too much time chasing the game last week off our own errors. We need to look after the ball better.
“As an ex-Pirate, it’s an incredible place to play rugby. You don’t need to have any affiliation to the Pirates to know that they’re an established Champ side. We know what they’re going to bring – it’s been raining down there all week, we’re expecting a heavy pitch and they know how to manage the conditions so we’ll be prepared for that. It’s been an attritional first block for us – thankfully we’ve had fewer red bibs in training this week and everyone’s been working hard so we can impose ourselves on the game. I want a performance this weekend that says, ‘That was our game plan, and we’ve executed it’. I’d like the players to deliver on our potential – we’ve got an exciting squad. It’s going to be wet, going to be windy, but whatever the conditions when we’re on song we play some great rugby. That’s what I want to see this Saturday”
“Jake Ellwood returns at prop. Chris Mills makes his first start at back row – Jimmy Thompson has also earned his first start at scrum half. Charlie Bemand and Jack Lawrence are back in the match day squad with Will Glister in the starting XV on the wing.”
Cambridge Line Up:
15 Otumaka Mausia
14 Will Glister
13 Levi Reweti
12 Jasper Sorrell
11 Ethan Thorne
10 Jamie Annand
9 Jimmy Thompson
1 Jake Ellwood
2 Jack Doorey-Palmer
3 Billy Walker
4 Rhys Fulford
5 Gareth Baxter
6 Chris Mills
7 Dan Eckersley
8 Ben Adams (C)
Reinforcements:
16 Dylan Irvine, 17 Jack Boal, 18 Paul Masoe, 19 Jack Lawrence, 20 Arthur Thomas, 21 Charlie Friend, 22 Charlie Bemand, 23 Eparama Rokodrava