Coaches Gareth Baber and Justin Burnell have named a young team for their first LV=Cup match of the season, against Newcastle away, on Saturday 15 October, 6.30pm kick off.
Looking ahead to the LV=Cup match against Newcastle, Baber said, “I think it’s important that some of the players that haven’t featured in the first five or six games are given the opportunity to push for the main squad. This is certainly what these two games are about.”
“We are ambitious as a group and we want to make sure that we are pushing everybody all the time, and this is the next phase of pushing on. It is a young team that we’ve selected, but it’s full of talent as well and that’s what we want to see as coaches.”
“In the summer we invited players who are in the academy, 18 and 19 year olds, to train with us. They’ve impressed not only the coaching and conditioning staff but the senior players as well. Players like Cory Allen, Rhys Patchell, Rhys Downes and Harry Robinson, although he doesn’t play this weekend, are pushing for first team places.”
“It is exciting. We want to see how far they’ve come and it gives us a good idea of where we think they are going to end up. Newcastle have had a tough time of it over the last few weeks as obviously the Aviva is a very competitive league. I imagine they will want to create some momentum and that can happen in tournaments like this, where you can go on a bit of a run, and then it lends itself to your League campaign.”
“I think they’d want to target this game against us, especially playing at home, but what we have to do as a group is make sure it doesn’t happen, or afford them that opportunity and get positives that we want out of the match.”
Starting XV:
15. Dan Fish
14. Richard Mustoe
13. Owen Williams
12. Cory Allen
11. Adam Thomas
10. Rhys Patchell
9. Rhys Downes
8. Luke Hamilton
7. Thomas Young
6. Ellis Jenkins
5. James Downes (c)
4. Cory Hill
3. Ryan Harford
2. Ryan Tyrrell
1. Nathan Trevett
Bench:
16. Rhys Williams
17. Jamie Corsi
18. Thomas Davies
19. Matthew Screech
20. Rhys Shellard
21. Lewis Jones
22. Lewis Williams
23. Richard Smith