The new season’s Champ Rugby fixtures are out – Cambridge begin their third season at Level 2 with a mouth-watering quartet of matches, two home and two away, against some tough – and traditional – opponents.
Head Coach Craig Newby is itching to go into battle with his newly-assembled squad – and is relishing the opening month of the 2025/26 Champ Rugby campaign
“The fixtures aren’t going to change our approach during pre season. We’re going to target games, and look at the fixture list and where we’re going to be. Home games are important, crowds are important, and it’s pretty cool to have crowds here over Christmas. It’s not going to change our planning in that respect. We’ve got plenty of opportunities for learning in pre season with a home game against Ulster – and we’ll look at how we approach our away games with a trip to Richmond, which will be great for bonding. As for the Champ fixtures, they’re tough. It really is the ‘proving ground’ and starting off at home is good. It’s exciting to start making plans
“Ampthill is a good fixture for us. Starting the campaign at home is exciting. It’s a game we would want to win and do well. It’ll be very competitive. It was one-all last season – it’ll be aggressive and confrontational which suits us and the way we want to play. It’s not far down the road so hopefully they bring a lot of supporters – lets hope everyone has a good day out and we start the season the way we want to with a win.
“Doncaster away is going to be a tough challenge – they’re going to be a top of the table side and their squad is very strong so that’ll be a brilliant challenge for us. It’ll be a new ground for me and many of the players. It’s going to be a really cool experience and hopefully it’ll have a galvanizing effect on us, learning some lessons and fighting for everything up there.
“London Scottish are next up at home – they’re a great club. Well-run, with a link to Harlequins. That’ll be ‘fire with fire’ – they play some really good rugby and we’ll be looking to take them on! They’re a good match for us and it’ll be another good test of where we’re at as a squad. We’ll be targeting a win in that one too.
“Caldy away? It’s a beautiful spot – they’re a great club – they’re very similar to ourselves in terms of resources and I love what they do, the way they hold themselves and how they play. It’ll be awesome to go up there and throw the kitchen sink at it. It’ll be tough, but that’ll suit what we want to be. We want to be competitive in every game, hard to beat, home and away. It’ll be a start we can really get our teeth into.
“With regard to Christmas, if you could choose a game to have on Boxing Day at home it’d be Coventry. They’ll bring a lot of supporters, it’ll be rammed, and it’ll be a different challenge against a really good side”.
Listen to the full podcast with Craig here.
The fixtures are here.
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