The game takes place at Ellgia Fields, Grantchester Road, Cambridge on Saturday 28th February and kicks off at 2pm
Here’s Head Coach Craig Newby on the visit of Cornish Pirates:
“Last Friday was disappointing – we put ourselves in a really good position to put pressure on Richmond in the first half – we missed three or four key opportunities – two or three good line breaks that turned into turnovers and we couldn’t quite get stuff going. When we did we scored two good tries. At halftime we were in it and then in the second half it just didn’t fall into place and we couldn’t get a foot hold. I think the turning point really was the try they scored off a box which bobbled around, they flipped it back and it came off Ed Timpson’s head; it went forward to their guy who ran in and scored and we didn’t really bridge that gap afterwards. We’ve done a review on Richmond – so I guess what I’m trying to say is nothing changes for us this week. We take it the same way and try and get to Saturday in orderly fashion. We’ll ask questions of the players – we’ve started conversations around what they didn’t do and why they did what they did and and some of the positive aspects, why was it good and what didn’t go quite right, so we look at all of that.We’re looking at execution – we label that three ways, – intensity, accuracy and care – we let ourselves down probably more in the accuracy rather than the intent and in the care for each other so that’ll be something we look forward to putting right and then ripping into the Pirates on Saturday.
“When we played them at the Mennaye we were actually pretty competitive, despite the score line.They were pretty resilient down there and they don’t mind defending for a long period of time so we came away with nothing on attack – defensively we had to put one or two numbers in to stop in their forward pack, creating gaps in the back line, so we plugged one hole and then another one opens up. I don’t think we deserved that score line but we certainly probably didn’t do enough to challenge them that day. We’re a different team – we’ve moved on immensely – they’re obviously improving as well all the time but we are a much better side than we were then and of course we’re at home so that’ll be exciting. We’ve had two away games in a row on Friday nights so we’ll be looking forward to getting back here on Saturday and this will be the last game of this block so we can throw everything at it.
“I’d like us to soak up pressure and put pressure back on them when we haven’t got the ball – we’ve shown that against Nottingham and Doncaster. We’ve shown that we know we can challenge them and push them all the way. Someone’s got to lose to us at some point so it’d be really cool if we could celebrate Gareth Baxter’s 200th appearance with a win. Gareth‘s been a brilliant servant to the Club – his dad Tracey‘s been here for a long time as well. I coached Gareth on my first time of coaching so it’s been full circle for me as well him and it’ll be nice for him to have that Pirates game at home in front of people that have watched him play for over a decade. He’s been a big part of us this year. He’s had a bit of resurgence in form and he’s enjoyed the way we were doing things this year off and the field. He’s getting good performances so we need to celebrate those milestones because it’s important. Rugby is a bigger game than wins and losses at times, and this is one of those”.
With Ed Timpson back in LA for the MLR season, Arthur Thomas moves to number 8 – and Rhys Fulford to 6. Jake McCay lines up alongside Gareth Baxter in the second row. Jack Lawrence from Northampton Saints returns to the bench – Leicester Tigers wing Kesena Izu makes up the match day 23. Ben Adams is likely to return from injury following the two week break.
Cambridge squad –
15 Ben Currie
14 Joe Green
13 Levi Reweti
12 Jasper Sorrell
11 Eli Caven
10 Otumaka Mausia
9 Ruaridh Dawson
1 Jake Ellwood
2 Jack Doorey-Palmer
3 Billy Walker
4 Jake McCay
5 Gareth Baxter
6 Rhys Fulford
7 Dan Eckersley (C)
8 Arthur Thomas
Reinforcements
17 Dylan Irvine 18 Jake Barry 18 Paul Wulf-Masoe 19 Jack Lawrence 20 Chris Mills 21 Jimmy Thompson 22 Jamie Annand 23 Kesena Izu