The game takes place at Ellgia Fields Grantchester Road, Cambridge on Friday 26th December – kick off is at 2pm
Here’s Craig:
“We won the last 20 minutes at Ealing last week by two tries to one. That’s the first time we’ve done that against one of the top sides. That’s something to be proud of. It shows the fight in this team. We actually created a lot of opportunities last week but we didn’t treasure the ball. Even the best sides will give you opportunities and we need to be better at taking them when they arrive. We had the courage to stick to our game plan and although our execution wasn’t what we wanted in the first half we came out after half time, went after our try bomu spoint goal and scored three times Not many sides will go to Ealing and do that. We proved we could go toe-to-toe with the top of the league. What’s really pleasing is we did it with a very young side – there were 14 or 15 guys who are 22 or under. That bodes well for the Club’s development.
“We know what Coventry will bring on Boxing Day. The challenge this week other than their quality is to get into the right mindset to execute our game plan. They’re another quality side, with ambition, skill and speed. They play similar to Bedford and they run a really good programme under Alex Rae. They’ve also gone younger this season whilst keeping a core of experienced men. They’ll be up in our faces and we’ll need to break down their front line defence. They’ll be coming here expecting us to roll over – we showed last Saturday that’s not going to happen and we’ll embrace the battle. This week I want a win. I’ve not talked about winning at all this season. It’d be great reward for all of the hard work put in by everybody at the Club on and off the field this season. We’ll look to bring more moments of fight, we’ll look to deal with the challenge posed by Coventry and if we do everything we can do and need to do there’s no reason why we can’t get that victory.”
Changes have been rung – prop Billy Walker is unavailable so Sam Buckley makes his first start. Jack Dorey-Palmer, Rhys Fulford, Gareth Baxter, Dan Eckersley and skipper Ben Adams all return – Adams will face one of his former clubs. Scrum half Ollie Allan comes in for his Blood & Sand debut on loan from Leicester Tigers. Winger Charlie Robson is also on debut.
Cambridge Line Up:
15 Ben Currie
14 Taitusi Qaniuci
13 Levi Reweti
12 Eparama Rokodrava
11 Charles Robson
10 Otumaka Mausia
9 Ollie Allan
1 Jake Ellwood
2 Jack Doorey-Palmer
3 Sam Buckley
4 Rhys Fulford
5 Gareth Baxter
6 Ben Adams (C)
7 Dan Eckersley
8 Ed Timpson
Reinforcements:
16 Dylan Irvine 17 Jake Barry 18 Paul Masoe 19 Jake McCay 20 Jack Lawrence 21 Ruaridh Dawson 22 Eli Caven 23 Vereimi Qorowale