The game takes place at Ellgia Fields on Saturday 17th May 2025 – kick off is at 3pm.
We are now coming to the end of a long and challenging season – it’s been an attritional few weeks in terms of results and injuries. So, what better way to close out our home Championship games than a local derby against our nearest rivals, Bedford Blues? We’ve stayed in matches with them since our promotion for long periods and proved we can go toe-to-toe with Blues, and indeed other Champ sides, for much of the 80 minutes.
Our aim this weekend will be to defend as well as we can and score, at least, four tries. We achieved the latter last week at London Scottish where we were very difficult to handle in the second quarter when we imposed ourselves on the game. We need to show more of that skill, grit and determination and get our attack firing as we know it can. If we do that we’ll be extremely competitive.
Prop Billy Walker is still out. Zac Nearchou starts at prop with Jake Ellwood. Eli Caven starts at 15 with Joe Tarrant at 10.Josh Skelcey and Matty Williams complete the back three. Matt Hema partners Sam Hanks in the centre. Louis Grimoldby, Ruaridh Dawson, Joe Green and back row Iestyn Rees are also injured. The Blood & Sand are missing their Northampton Saints and Leicester Tigers loans this weekend.
Cambridge Line Up:
15-Eli Caven, 14-Josh Skelcey, 13-Sam Hanks, 12-Matt Hema, 11-Matt Williams, 10-Joe Tarrant, 9-Pete White, 1-Zac Nearchou, 2-Ben Brownlie (VC), 3-Jake Ellwood, 4-George Bretag-Norris, 5-Charlie Friend, 6-Kayde Sylvester, 7-Joseph Gaffan, 8-Ben Adams (C), 16-Morgan Veness, 17-Cam Murphy, 18-Jake Bridges, 19-Gareth Baxter, 20-Mark Miska-Alvarez, 21-Sam Edwards, 22-Ollie Betteridge, 23-Preston Macfarlane