Cambridge continue preparations for new RFU Championship season with friendly defeat at Cardiff

Cambridge continued their preparations for a second consecutive RFU Championship campaign with a narrow 14-12 defeat during Saturday’s friendly away at Cardiff.

Jared Carew and Elias Caven both dotted down for Cambridge, who have lost their two pre-season fixtures so far this summer.

Director of rugby Richie Williams told the Richie & Jacko Podcast: “That will be one of the games tomorrow morning where you’re scratching your head and asking how we lost that game based on the clear-cut opportunities we created.

“I think there was four in the first half and we dropped one of those over the line and we’ve gone clean through and lost the ball in a two on one with the full-back.

“There was one in the second half as well and that’s a combination of poor skill execution, which is partly on us as a coaching group, and it’s a lack of composure at key moments.

“The encouraging thing is that compared to last week, we created six, seven or eight try-scoring opportunities and we looked more threatening in what we’re doing with our attack.

“Credit to Cardiff for getting over the line. They put a lot of pressure on us at the breakdown and that’s an area we need to address pretty quickly.”

Cambridge will play their final friendly of the summer at Aberavon on Saturday (7 September).