Cambridge Head Coach Richie Williams has announced his squad for Saturday’s Championship Round 5 clash with Cornish Pirates at Ellgia Fields. Kick off is at 3pm. Here’s Richie:
”Based on the times we played them last season we’ve gone reasonably well against Cornish Pirates. When we went down there in April we gave a really good account of ourselves for 60 minutes. It was very close at half time – we just ran out of steam in the fourth quarter but scored some really good tries in the first half. They had just a little bit more quality off their bench than we did. They’re another of the fully professional sides – they’re really well coached – and they’re in a period of transition, a bit of a rebuilding phase following players moving on or retiring”.
“They lost in the last play of the game against Ealing, something similar happened to them against Bedford last Saturday, they won away at Nottingham on the first day of the season and came unstuck against a very strong, Harlequins-heavy London Scottish side the other week. We’re under no illusions about how difficult it’ll be on Saturday but I think the way we’ve played, especially against Caldy and Coventry, we’ve showed we can be competitive. The focus for us this week is to reduce those individual errors that really cost us last Friday against Hartpury. Also, we want to focus on starting games a lot more positively than we have in the last couple of games. There’s lot there for us to work on but we’ve had a really positive week and we’re looking forward to ripping into Saturday”.
Matt Hema makes his 151st appearance. Joe Green returns. Hooker Ben Brownlie is still out – Morgan Veness deputises with Leicester Tigers’ Archie Vanes on the bench. Northampton Saints full back Ewan Baker is backs’ cover along with scrum half Pete White. Eli Caven and Zac Nearchou are still injured.