With the pitches at Ellgia Fields in need of water, this Saturday’s triangular fixture with Colchester and Hertford is now at Colchester on 3G. Skipper Ben Adams looks forward to meeting the weekend’s opponents head-on…
“It’s exciting times! We’ve been ticking a lot of boxes, a lot of guys have been really, really impressive so I guess we will have to see how the gelling goes, because there is no fitness like game fitness. In training everyone can look a million bucks, but the real test is going to be that first preseason game against Colchester and Hertford. It’s much more fun hitting somebody in an opposition shirt than somebody wearing a bib! Clearly we’re disappointed we could’nt do that last Saturday, but an extra session doesn’t hurt at this stage.
“You get a much better gauge of things. Some people can come in and be very quiet in pre-season and then surprise the heck out of you in that first game – and others can come in all guns blazing and then need a bit more time to adapt and overcome. Rugby IQ is absolutely insanely important in National One because this division really underlines the ‘forwards winning games, the backs decide by how much’. Newbs has recruited more experience. I think there’s still a lot of energy in that experience and there’s still a lot of energy in the younger recruits but rugby IQ, the smarts, the being there and done that is going to be worth its weight in gold in those tight encounters – whether it’s in the first month when the ground’s lovely and hard or when it’s January, February where we’re in a bog somewhere and all we need is someone to settle it and play with a bit of freedom.
“There were a number of occasions last season when we didn’t make good decisions, or at least, the correct decision – and it’s about minimising the the 50/50s in those decisions. If we can make them 80/20s or 90/10s rather than 50/50s all well and good – that’s where we need to be, that’s where the real sort of winning mindset comes from. You have to be really resilient, really resourceful to come out on top of what tend to be very big aggregate scorelines in National One – the bonus points are sort of a lot more plentiful and now that we’re going back down from the Championship, the tackle height’s gone down as well, so there’s probably going to be a few more penalties per game which then equals either points, or field position and then points. So yeah, we’ll see how we go. Hopefully we can get those 50-50s into 80-20s by the time that first game at Birmingham Moseley in a few weeks time!”