Cambridge Rugby Club will need ‘mindset switch’ for first ever campaign in RFU Championship

As the dust settled on what had been an historic 2022/23 campaign and the celebrations died down, realism quickly set in for Richie Williams and his Cambridge Rugby Club coaching staff.

The fact is that in the two seasons since Covid-19 halted play, Williams’ side have gotten used to winning matches of rugby.

Indeed, of the 54 National League 1 fixtures that Cambridge played during that timeframe, they were victorious in 74 per cent of those.

But life will be very different this time around. Promoted as champions after their final-day triumph over Birmingham back in May, Cambridge are now preparing for a first ever term in the RFU Championship.

They are now rubbing shoulders with some well-resourced full-time outfits and truth be told, if you offered Williams a win percentage that was half of what they achieved in the last two years, there is every chance that he would take it.

“It’s going to be a real shift in mindset for us. Teams will be looking at us as a target for five points, whereas in previous seasons that is what we were doing to other sides,” said Williams.

“Last year we were certainly doing that when we were going for the title – it’s the mentality you have to have when you’re looking to win things.

“We know that will not always be the case this year and so it’s going to be a big shift in our mindset as a group.

“But we’ve built this group up over the years. When we came in around three or four years ago we were just avoiding relegation so there are players in the squad that have had tough experiences and that will hold them in good stead.

“Even this group we have put together in the summer, they had tough moments in the Premiership Cup and while it hurts at the time, you can use those experiences to your advantage.

“We’ve got some good leaders in the group and they’ll rally the squad going into the season.

“We know that there might be some tough weekends along the way, but as a management team, as players and as a club we want to enjoy this season.”

Cambridge will open up on Saturday (October 21) on the road at Ampthill – a semi-professional side like themselves that finished eighth last season.

And Williams is well aware that with some aforementioned ‘tough weekends’ on the horizon, matches like the one this weekend will be key to deciding his charges’ finishing position.

He added: “We want to finish as high as we can in the Championship. We’re ambitious but at the same time we also have to be realistic.

“When you look at the full-time teams and potentially Ealing as well, they are working with different resources.

“One big thing is the capacity of the full-time players to go for longer periods in every single game.

“Physically they’ll be in shape because come Monday morning, the full-time players’ jobs is to be a rugby player, whereas the semi-professional sides are training two or three times a week around work.

“They do their analysis, they can pick out your weaknesses and then go out there and exploit them.

“But then there are others – like ourselves – that are semi-professional and I think our first game against Ampthill is going to be a good benchmark that shows where we are. They’ve been in the league longer than us, but it will still be a useful barometer because our set-ups are similar.

“There’s maybe five or six teams that will be up there and the others we have to be looking to get points against. We’ll need to do that to finish as high up as we can.”

One thing is for sure, Cambridge’s preparation for life at the highest level in the club’s history has been bruising.

The draw for the season-opening Premiership Cup was far from kind, slotting Cambridge in alongside Gallagher Premiership outfits Bristol Bears and Northampton Saints, while fellow Championship sides Doncaster Knights and Cornish Pirates are both full time.

Some hefty defeats were suffered, yet Williams is hopeful it has left his players battle hardened ahead of the big kick off at Ampthill.

He said: “It was all about managing expectations going into the cup. When we saw the draw we knew we had two top teams from the Premiership and three full-time teams in the Championship – that’s a big challenge.

“It ended up being really difficult but we learned that we’ve got depth in positions that perhaps we weren’t aware of before.

“We suffered some injuries early on and ended up using 34 or 35 players in the five games. For context, I think we used just 37 throughout the whole of last season, but it meant we were able to experiment and try certain different things.

“Some of it worked, some of it didn’t, but we know we can be competitive against these teams for a period, we just need to do it for longer.

“Ultimately we were up against Premiership players and international players – that’s very tough.

“We suffered some heavy defeats but as a group we learned lots about ourselves and there are still some positives to take from it.”

After this weekend’s trip to Ampthill, Cambridge will run out at the newly-sponsored Ellgia Fields for the first time as a Championship club on Saturday, October 28 when Doncaster Knights will be their visitors.