With Saturday’s pre season opener against Havant here just around the corner, we caught up with Head Coach Craig Newby for a look at how we’re positioned going into competitive games…
“With recruitment, we kind of look at how we want to play, we looked at the profile of a player that we wanted to try and sign, particularly in the forward pack. And then we look at combinations. So we wouldn’t sign four 10s, or we wouldn’t sign three centres who are Jasper Sorrell-type players. We want to have people who can complement Jasper in a centre pairing. So we do look at combinations and how they’ll fit together. Sometimes you get what you’re given and you don’t get to choose. Sometimes people just want to come and play. We’re keen and we’ll give them an opportunity. There’s a couple of those guys, almost walk-ups, where Will Wood, for example, was a guy who’s moved to the area for work. He reached out. He’s got relatively good experience and good CV, so he’s welcome with open arms. He’s already slotting into the squad really well and we’ll now find a spot for him and hopefully he continues. That’s as important as recruitment, but the door is open for anyone, players, Colts of the club, Colts of other clubs, seniors anywhere, you know, if you want to come to Cambridge and have an opportunity we’ll give you that opportunity. Will was at at Rotherham, two years at Rotherham. I know last year he didn’t play as much as he wanted to, but he’s hungry for an opportunity down here and like I said he’s moved down here for work, I think he might actually be from around here from memory. So yeah, he’s certainly one of those good surprises. He’s a bigger unit than Jasper, so that’s kind of a nice complement to the other. Jasper punches a lot of holes and if they can both carry in different ways, that’s always got to be good. Yeah, definitely to complement each other, but I guess both of those guys, the distribution game would be areas that they want to work on. Someone’s got to pass the ball to the wingers so we’ll see how that looks.
“Luke Bouchier is a completely different type of ten to what we’ve had over the last couple of seasons. For a young man or he’s in his late 20s he’s in a good position life outside of rugby as well with his personal and professional life outside of rugby so he comes here using this as a vehicle to improve, and he’s aspirational as a rugby player, but also as a young coach, so he’ll be looking a little bit around the scrum attack and some of our kick strategy stuff, so that’ll be interesting for him. He’ll be in there feeling it, and he can feed that back to the coaching staff and the group. And he and Ruaridh will be really good together, both very good kickers of the ball, But we use those as weapons, not as a negative option in a just let’s just kick the leather off it because we’ve got good kickers, it’ll be used very wisely, so that’s exciting. Very different to both Jamie and Otu who we had last year in terms of his approach. Very methodical, very planned, but sees space really well and has got a great array have skills to get that ball to space whether it’s run, kick or pass. He’s also a big unit and can play in the centres as well, so that gives us flexibility if needed, but predominantly he’s here to run the team. It’ll be good for Ruaridh as well to have someone outside him who can make decisions and he can just play free and be his own man because that’s his strength, is seeing space and putting others through it. Hopefully that complements them well. I’ve also got Oscar Lewis, a young lad out at St Joe’s College who will be in fighting for that position over the coming months and seasons, and Will Howes as well who’s returning as a senior academy. So we’ve got three tens there that have got lots of skill in different parts of their journey.
“In the row, Jake Parkinson is a really cool player, a really cool person. He’s one of those guys who doesn’t mind showing his character and we embrace that. He’s an individual but he understands and he loves the game of rugby as a team sport. First and foremost, he’s come here to play. He played a lot for Ampthill last year. So he is a Champ quality player but he’s also, he wants to lead, he wants to lead a line out, he wants to play every week, he wants to help young guys, he wants, he’s got a lot of goals, not a problem but guiding Jake to narrow that focus down is something that we’ll be helping him with. But he’s an asset for us, a big unit, carries and tackles aggressively. Like I say, he loves the line-out. He’d be a good asset, especially with Gareth Baxter having moved on, who ran that line-out last year. There’s no shying away that when Gareth was on the field we were a nearly 90% success rate in the line-outs, and when he wasn’t we were lower 80s. Jake’s got a big role there. Jake McKay will mature into that calling space as well. We’ve signed Nile Dacres who’s going to run our line-out and play as well so we’ve got three guys there that can call a line out which is a skill in itself and then Charlie Friend – we really want this to be Charlie’s year. Very intelligent player, very very physical and just hasn’t quite been able to string the form and games together so this is this is Charlie’s year and he’s looking awesome at pre-season so we’re lucky to have four really good second rows and you need it as well because there’s always one as an issue during the course of the season because of the physical nature of the game.
“By the end of this four weeks, we won’t be ready, but we’ll be ready for a game of rugby. So we’ll have ticked off all the elements, the crucial elements. We’re not trying to bite off more than we can chew. We’re trying to get a certain amount of the basic, basic stuff done. But they’ll be ready to play physically and tactically.. So, um, quite a nice, short pre-season before we start playing. We’ve asked the boys to, in their time away from here, because they work their socks off when they’re here, is to be accountable for their development away from rugby. And that’s not just going to the gym or going for a run. It’s around their skill development as well. And then, you know, reviewing training and things. And so far they’ve been pretty diligent. Full-time rugby player, part-time job, part-time down at the club. But it is full-time rugby player at the end of the day. Otherwise you just don’t get any better. Yeah, what else do you want in life? Good footy, good mates, you know, like we’re very lucky this year, we’ve increased our support around jobs. We’ve got Gary Mills-Thomas who’s helping the boys find jobs they want to be involved, so that’s helped with recruitment and retention. And so guys are happier off the field, and when they’re happy off the field, they’re going to be happier on the field. So we can’t look away, you know, shy away from the fact that we’re here to compete and we’re here to win games of footy. So everyone’s here to do that. And all of those pieces of the puzzle joined together and hopefully are a winning formula.”