Cambridge head coach Richie Williams hasn’t tinkered too much with his side to face Chinnor in the first leg of the Not The Premiership Cup at Kingsey Road. Kick off is at 7.45pm this Friday 15th November.
Here’s Richie:
“There’s a lot of hype around this fixture – and rightly so – the rugby community has got behind this game if you look at the social media content from both clubs. It’s a ‘free’ weekend and I’d be expecting lots of neutral support to come along on Friday and just from our perspective it’ll be nice to have a hit-out again. The boys have had some time away from rubgy, and trained last week and this and there’s a proper air of excitement around the first leg of this fixture this Friday. The easy thing to do in this period without Premiership Cup fixtures would have been to look for some friendly games, so huge kudos to Chinnor and ourselves, I think, for working hard to put on a competitive fixture with giant trophy to play for!
“There’s now a bit of meaning to these two games and there’ll be a little bit of added spice after the opening Championship fixture. We’re still hurting from that first game when Chinnor came to Ellgia Fields and frankly embarrassed us. They’re sitting quite pretty in the league – they’ll be pleased with their first five games at this level; we’re just starting to hit our straps. For us it’s going to be about consistency now on Friday night and moving forward. Everyone should come along and get excited about the game! Both squads will be similar to those that have been put out in the Championship and I know the players are treating this just like a Championship fixture. There’s a lot riding on it – a massive trophy to play for – and we’ve spoken this week about improving our record on Friday nights, when traditionally we’ve struggled. We’ll be keen to address that this week”.
There’s an almost fully fit squad to choose from this week – although the game comes too early for wingers Eli Caven and Josh Skelcey, both recovering from injury. Ashton Webb and Tom Hoppe are on loan at Colchester RFC.
TEAM
15-Joe Tarrant, 14-Matt Hema, 13-Sam Hanks, 12-Ollie Betteridge, 11- Joe Green, 10-Louis Grimoldby (CC), 9- Ruaridh Dawson, 1- Seb Brownhill, 2- Ben Brownlie, 3- Billy Walker, 4- George Bretag-Norris (CC), 5- Gareth Baxter, 6- Kayde Sylvester, 7- Iestyn Rees, 8- Jack Bartlett, 16-Morgan Veness, 17-Zak Nearchou, 18-Jake Bridges, 19-Matt Dawson, 20-Ben Adams, 21- Pete White, 22-Matty Williams, 23-Jared Cardew