Craig Newby has made changes to his squad ahead of the visit of Nottingham in Champ Round 5.
Here’s Craig:
“We gave ourselves a lot to do last week at Caldy. We dug ourselves into a hole but we climbed out of it, and threw some punches. We didn’t give up and we fought through it and played some very pleasing rugby at times. We left some points out there but we showed some of our potential and what we have to do now is extend that ‘purple patch’ and bring those poor passages of play down to a manageable level, to say 5-10 minutes at a time, rather than that first 30 minute block. Our challenge is to limit the damage we cause ourselves in those poorer moments when we’re not at our best. We came out of last week with a point – we’re learning that mistakes are very costly at this level.
We’ve got some talented players and we’re striving for more consistency. Our line outs has been at 90% for the last two weeks and everyone’s been challenged to up their work rate on and off the ball. We’re getting there. We’re very focussed on being organised and using that to express ourselves.
As for this week, Nottingham are a really good side. They’ve got some talented players. Home and away they play the same way so they’ll bring that here. We’re looking forward to the challenge this weekend. There’s some things that we think we can exploit – they’ll say the same – and we’re looking forward to showing more of what we can do. Whilst we’ve tried not to make too many changes a lot of players have put their hands up over recent weeks. Zac Nearchou starts at prop after his heroic performance – and two tries – at Caldy last week. Jamie Annand is back at 10 after injury to face his former club. Jasper Sorrell and Ethan Thorne have earned their 1st XV – and Champ – debuts in the backline and Joe Green also returns from illness. Young Samoan Prop Paul Masoe will make his 1st XV and Champ debut amongst the reinforcements. Chris Mills will also make his first appearance for the Club from the bench.”
Cambridge Line Up:
15 Otumaka Mausia
14 Joe Green
13 Levi Reweti
12 Jasper Sorrell
11 Ethan Thorne
10 Jamie Annand
9 Ruaridh Dawson
1 Zac Nearchou
2 Jack Doorey-Palmer
3 Billy Walker
4 Rhys Fulford
5 Gareth Baxter
6 Arthur Thomas
7 Dan Eckersley
8 Ben Adams (C)
Reinforcements
16 Dylan Irvine, 17 Jack Boal, 18 Paul Wulf-Masoe, 19 Ardal Yallop, 20 Chris Mills, 21 Jimmy Thompson, 22 Will Glister, 23 Eparama Rokodrava