Cambridge begin new RFU Championship campaign with home loss to newly-promoted Chinnor

Director of rugby Richie Williams has branded his Cambridge side’s start to the new season ‘unacceptable’ after Saturday’s 57-24 home defeat at the hands of Chinnor.

Despite finishing bottom of the RFU Championship last term, there was much optimism around Volac Park ahead of kick off following a positive summer of recruitment.

However, the newly-promoted visitors dampened the mood with a memorable display that yielded nine tries to their hosts’ four.

And it was a performance that left Williams with plenty to ponder.

“When you concede 14 points in the first 10 minutes, you’re immediately putting yourselves under pressure,” he told the Richie & Jacko Podcast.

“Unfortunately a lot of what we’ve spoken about and done during the week, we weren’t able to do in that opening quarter of the game.

“Fair play to Chinnor, they did a lot of the things that we wanted to do to them. They put us under pressure, they were really physical defensively and we ended up forcing play.

“To concede 57 points in our first home game is unacceptable and we’ve made the players aware of that at the end.

“We managed to get something from the game (one bonus point) – to get one point is something I guess, but it’s not the start that we wanted.

“For us there’s a lot to take away from the game – it’s going to be a hard watch.

“But if we’re being honest and we want to be better and we want to finish higher up than we did last season, the performances have got to be far better than they were today.

“We were the architects of our own downfall and our inability to keep the ball in the first half really hurt us.

“We’ve just got to have more desire to do the little things and the things we don’t like doing in the week.

“I’m a firm believer that if we get those little things right in our game, a lot of it is based around effort and desire, then that scoreboard looks a lot different than it does today.”

Cambridge will look to kickstart their season next time out on Saturday (28 September) when they travel to Birkenhead on Merseyside to lock horns with Caldy.

The Ravers started the new 2024/25 season last weekend with a 45-19 defeat on the road against Bedford Blues.

Caldy were one of the two sides that Cambridge managed to beat during their debut season in the Championship last term.