Head Coach Craig Newby makes changes ahead of the visit of Bury St Edmund’s this Saturday in Round 2 of National League One…Kick off is at 3pm at Ellgia Fields…
Cambridge were edged out 38-33 by Birmingham Moseley last week, outscoring the hosts by 5 tries to 4 – penalties were their undoing, Moseley landing four and profiting from a penalty try – James Shanahan’s Bury side were beaten by London Scottish 53-27 at the Habaden and a bumper crowd is expected for the first of this season’s local derbies.
Here’s Craig:
“Last Saturday, it wasn’t the result we wanted. We were there to get the win. We did, though, come away with two valuable points against a pretty good Birmingham side. They played some good footy and put us under pressure. On reflection, there’s a couple of key areas that we can tidy up, and that’ll fix a lot of the pressure we put ourselves under, so we’ll go after those this week. We’ll preview Bury on Thursday and see if it all matches up – and hopefully we’ll put a in better performance as a result. It doesn’t matter how good a pre season you have, until you have your first league run-out you don’t know where you are. We’d obviously had Colchester and Bedford, and we knew we were somewhere in between.
“Now we know exactly where we are. The reality of National 1 is it’s a tough league. We knew that, but now we know exactly what it feels like. But in saying that, this club being relegated can be pretty tough emotionally, so to come away with two points in the way we did, scoring two tries in the last 10 minutes to get those points, is pleasing. If we cut down a couple of the penalties we conceded, they wouldn’t have kicked those points and it would have been a different story.
“We scored five tries to their four.At the start we were a little bit scratchy and they got off to six nil and then we clawed it back to 14-6. We had two further opportunities, and we dropped the ball a couple of times and just let them off the hook. Then they had a purple patch of about 15 minutes and scored three tries. We did everything we could in the second half but they kept the scoreboard ticking over and just kept us at arm’s length until that last 10 minutes. We clawed it back but it was too late. This weekend It’s a local derby – that won’t affect our planning. We’ve got a week that we plan out and go after as a group. I think emotionally on Saturday there’ll be a good crowd here which will be cool.
“It’s our first game back at home and the grass is – finally – looking green, so that’s good. Obviously there’s some personal relationships with some of our players with some of their players so that’ll always add a little bit of niggle and some spice. It’s a long season, so this game isn’t going to define ours – or Bury’s – campaign; but it’s certainly an important one for our club and their club, so I think it’ll be fitting spectacle.
“Our goal this year is to win as many games as we possibly can. It didn’t work out last week, but it starts again this week. We’re training the house down to try and get that win and then we’ll do the same again the weeks after. Last year we were here to be hard to beat and to compete and this year it’s those same things plus the win. There won’t be many changes this weekend – Will Wood has picked up an injury so he’ll miss out this week and we’ll welcome back Jasper Sorrell.”
Northampton Saints pair Ben Alexander and George Tonga’uiha both start – Ben Gibson returns to his regular full back berth. Jacob Milner replaces Will Wood, who scored twice at Moseley. Hooker Ed Wood is on the bench for his first outing of the season.
Cambridge Squad
15. Ben Gibson 14. Eli Caven 13. Jacob Milner 12. Jasper Sorrell 11. Ethan Thorne 10. Luke Bouchier 9. Ruaridh Dawson
1. Tom Petty 2. Ben Alexander 3. Billy Walker 4. Jake McCay 5. George Tonga’uiha 6. Nile Dacres 7. Chris Mills 8. Ben Adams (C)
Reinforcements
16. Ed Wood 17. John Petty 18. Josh Carr 19. Ted Warner 20. Benji Ritson