Here’s Craig Newby ahead of the trip to Tonbridge Juddians this weekend. The game takes place at The Slade and kicks off at 3pm. Cambridge were on the wrong side of the local derby against Bury St Edmunds last week – losing 31-38 at Ellgia Fields. Tonbridge Juddians won 38-39 at London Scottish. The only previous visit to TJ’s ended in a resounding 59-10 Cambridge victory on the way to a promotion-winning season…
“Obviously we didn’t get the result we wanted against Bury – but there’s some real positive signs around some of our play. And when we get it right, we’re dangerous and we’re hard to stop and we’re scoring tries, which is good. We’ve got to find the balance between risk-reward and not putting ourselves under pressure. If we can get that right for more than 40 or 50 minutes then we’re going to be a very strong side. Unfortunately we’re not quite there yet and we’ve got a lot of injuries to some key men, meaning that the workload, the leadership workload and the decision making hasn’t been shared out. When that happens you make mistakes.
“Rugby is a 15 man game and everyone has to do everything these days, catch, pass, run, tackle, support. I thought the forwards were excellent in most facets on the weekend – they scored all five tries. The scrum was dominant, the line-out was pretty dominant too. We mauled well and our collisions were good. We didn’t execute some opportunities we had in their 22 in the first half. I think there were three mistakes that we made in the 22 from just skill errors and decision-making and I think it could have been a different story. It potentially could have been 35 or 40 points in that first half.
“Bury were tenacious and smart and streetwise enough, and that group’s been together for a while – and they know how to win. They had a purple patch in the second half – but it was based on, I think, our first half. We just made too many mistakes. and some key decisions went against us, and that was it, really. Everyone knows it’s a tough league. You just look at the table and we’re near the bottom, we’ve got four points – two try bonus points and two narrow defeats. Saying that, at this stage after two games we’re just six points behind the top teams. One win and you’re moving up the table. It’s already proving to be a very tough, even competition.
“With regards to the injuries, we’ve had a couple of guys from Saturday’s game looking at scans this week for a few niggles. There are some positives – Callum Smyth and Jacob Cusick are back. On Saturday I’d like to see consistency of domination. We’re very dominant in some areas and we didn’t capitalise enough against Bury, particularly in that first half when we had the wind and territory. I want to see us improve so that when we are on top of a team we stay there. I want us to win. That’s the bottom line. What we’re striving for is a win – so that’s what we’re aiming for this weekend.”
Cambridge Squad
15. Eli Caven 14. Ben Gibson 13. Jacob Cusick 12. Jasper Sorrell 11. Ethan Thorne 10. Luke Bouchier 9. Ruaridh Dawson
1. Callum Smyth 2. Tom Petty 3. Billy Walker 4. Jake McCay 5. Nile Dacres 6. Ted Warner 7. Chris Mills 8. Ben Adams (C)
Reinforcements
16. Jude White 17. John Petty 18. Tom Campbell 19. Benji Ritson 20. Oscar Lewis