With the pitches at Grantchester Road being so dry, the triangular fixture with Colchester and Hertford has been moved to Colchester’s ground, which has a 3G pitch…
Here are the thoughts of Head Coach Craig Newby on this weekend’s matches…
“I’d say it was the old ‘three steps forward and one step back’ last weekend. The boys have been training pretty hard and were really excited about getting in to play some footy, and unfortunately, Havant weren’t able to field a team. The biggest disappointment, though, was missing out on getting the club going again and getting people in here and feeling the energy of the supporters. I feel for them as much as I do for the players. We can’t do anything about it and we can only train and do our best and then look forward to Colchester and Hertford this weekend.
“We’re excited for Saturday. We see the triangular fixture as a positive. Obviously Colchester have come up into National Two and they want to be challenged. Mikey, and his boys down there, want to be challenged and they’ve got a good squad and they should do well at the new level. And then Hertford are a club that we’ve got links with, and we’ve had loan players down to Hertford as well, and they have aspirations in their own league.
“So I can only see it as a positive for all three teams. We’ve got a bigger squad this year with eight senior Academy boys joining us. We’ve got a contracted squad of 24 seniors, plus those eight – and we need to get those guys games, and we need to make sure that those young guys, particularly, are getting adult rugby. Hertford will be perfect for them. and, of course, we’ll have a couple of them playing in the first team against Colchester. So it’s going be a positive for us.
“It’s a shame that it’s not after a run-out against Havant, where everyone would’ve got that game time. We can now start to shape what our best 20 looks like for the Bedford game the following week. When you recruit and retain, you’re trying to build your team into being a team that can compete and perform and win games in the league you’re in. There’s been some guys who have stood up and there’s a couple of guys who have been injured over the off-season that have got some work to do. Captain Ben Adams hasn’t done a lot of training with us after getting a hamstring injury near the end of last season. And Sam Turner at prop has come in, and he’s training really well, so Billy Walker’s under pressure there, which is cool.
“We’ve also got Tom Campbell, Jesse Cottrell, and Jude White, who’s a local lad, all pushing really hard – and Ben’s going to have to be pretty sharp to get back into the team as well, so that all creates competition. So we’ve got some young guys pushing, and we’ve got some new guys in the back line. Jacob Cusick and Luke Bouchier are working really hard, and we’ve got some young guys like Oscar Lewis who’s come out of school and he’s learning a lot already. He’s extremely talented – so the depth is really good. We’ve already got one eye on the trip to Birmingham Moseley, and how do we map out from this point to that and win that game at Billesley Common after next week’s visit to Bedford Blues for Friday Night Lights.”
Cambridge Team v Hertford
1 Sam Turner
2 Oscar Considine
3 Ed Wood
4 Jake McCay (C)
5 Raff FW
6 Tom Campbell
7 Jesse Cotterill
8 Josh Carr
9 Benji Ritson
10 Oscar Lewis
11 Ben Barlow
12 Will Wood
13 Max Hubbard
14 Anu Otto
15 Will Howes
Raiders
16 Kit Colbe 17 Tom Petty 18 Rhys Warren 19 Will Livit
Cambridge Team v Colchester
1 Callum Smyth
2 Jude White
3 Billy Walker
4 Charlie Friend
5 Jake Parkinson
6 Ted Warner
7 Chris Mills
8 Ben Adams (C)
9 Ruaridh Dawson
10 Luke Bouchier
11 Ethan Thorne
12 Jasper Sorrell
13 Jacob Cusick
14 Joe Hill
15 Eli Caven
Raiders
16 Oscar Considine 17 Sam Turner 18 Jake McCay 19 Benji Ritson 20 Will Wood