Cinderford Eager Beavers for Home Rugby v Blaydon RFC
Saturday 22 February KO 2.30pm — National 1
The floods are still playing havoc with Cinderford’s season as they faced their third in a row cancellation last Saturday against Wharfedale. Sitting in the bottom section of the league table yet with four games in hands, of which three are at home, their lowly position paints a false picture.
Commenting on the weeks of training without game time, Andy Deacon, director of rugby said: “We haven’t had a home game since before Christmas now but the only positive is we will finish with a flurry of matches on our home patch. Our away performance has been strong with two wins from three. Now, the boys are really ready for a game of rugby. When you have so many games called off your enthusiasm can wane but truthfully this hasn’t been the case. I thank all the players for their positive approach and giving it their all. We had a great session against Newent last week and trained again on Saturday morning at Brockworth Sports Centre. After that I travelled with the United team to play Ealing 2nds at their place. Even though the pitch looked unplayable, the weather held and it was a good game with a fantastic win against a championship club. We had our full allocation of Gloucester Rugby loan players – Ryan Charles, Tom Hicks, Tom Heard, Reece Boughton and Andrew Bulumakau – who all played to get game time. All the guys impressed and there was a good mix of youngsters including Ollie Whiting, Toby Farrier, Alex Frame, Tom Law, with the more experienced guys including Joe Smart, Will Keenan, James Brooks, Loti Molitika, led by captain Stef Hawley.”
“Today we utilise the gap weekend in league fixtures with a rescheduled match against Blaydon, and once again thanks to all the grounds men working so hard to make the pitch playable in these tough conditions. Fingers crossed. All of the teams in the top half of the table have played their full quota of matches, which just shows how regionalised the poor weather has been. Blackheath and Richmond are both pulling away and that could be us if we had played all our games. I’m looking at all the permutations and it’s still in our hands and favour to win and gain points from all our fixtures and achieve a stronger, mid table position. I am totally confident to deliver the results when we get our game time.”
Other team news sees Cinderford United travel away to play Richmond Vikings and the Stags are away at local neighbours, Newent RFC Second XV, kicking off at 2.30pm.
Cinderford RFC / @cinderfordrfc v Balydon RFC / @BlaydonRFC
Backs:
15. Mike Wilcox
14. Nev Codlin
13. Sam Hanks
12. Robbie Winchle
11. Sam Baker
10. Mark Davies
9. Danny Pointon
Forwards:
1. Chris Bundy
2. Tom Bozzard
3. Elliot Booley
4. Lance Randall
5. Ed King
6. Roger Birkin
7. George Mills
8. George Evans ©
Replacements:
16. Will Davis
17. Ryan Charles
18. Tom Hicks
19. Stef Hawley
20. Will Keenan