Foresters travel to Scottish on a high

CINDERFORD director of rugby operations Pete Glanville insists there is no better time for his team to be visiting London Scottish tomorrow.

Big-spending Scottish have won six of their eight National One matches so far this season and sit second in the table after strolling to promotion last year and have only lost at title rivals Esher and Cambridge.

But the Foresters have won their last three fixtures in a row after losing their first five of the campaign and Glanville (pictured right) says they are growing in self confidence.

“We have a tough ask at London Scottish away but we could not go into it better prepared,” he said.

“When we played them a few years ago we only lost by a point there and we beat them here so we are looking forward to going up there and hopefully pulling off another shock win.

“We are starting to have a bit of self belief now. We have now had three wins on the bounce and the guys are starting to believe in themselves a bit more which is good.”

In their five defeats at the start of the season, Cinderford conceded nearly 200 points in total, at an average of nearly 40 a game, but since then they have managed to stem the tide.

In their first win of the season at lowly Manchester three weeks ago Cinderford only conceded a penalty in their 93-3 victory.

A week later they did the same when they managed to keep out one of the sides in the top half of the table, Otley, in a 26-3 win which was their first success at Dockham Road this season.

And after beating one of last year’s promotion chasers Redruth 23-15 at home last weekend, Glanville says they have been working hard on their defence.

“Defence is something we have worked really hard on and at the end of the day it is the back bone of your game,” he added.

“Against Otley two weeks ago we denied them no tries whatsoever and last week against Redruth they only scored two tries.

“It is just a testament to the guys really. We are a new squad and we are starting to gel now as a team and Phil (Greenaway, head coach) and Lee (Fortey, forwards coach) are doing a great job making a team.”