Shelford Rugby Club ‘exceeding expectations’ after bright start to life in Regional 1 South

Director of rugby Will Cotterill has admitted that his Shelford side have “exceeded expectations” so far this season.

Newly-promoted into the Regional 1 South division following last term’s title-winning heroics, the unbeaten Peacocks sit second in the table following last weekend’s 34-18 victory at Colchester.

And Cotterill believes the players have been using the confidence from a successful 2021/22 campaign to propel them forwards.

“It’s been a really good start,” he said. “We were hoping we’d be as competitive as possible but it’s probably fair to say we’ve exceeded expectations.

“We built into last season with some tight wins early on and then by the end we were rocking and rolling, picking up lots of points and winning the big games.

“We also did well against Rochford Hundred and North Walsham in pre-season. They’re National 2 sides and that gave us plenty of belief.

“And these boys are now also used to winning games, they can tough it out and get the job done.”

The league takes a break this weekend, which some may view as potentially harmful to Shelford’s momentum

However, Cotterill believes the free time will be beneficial, especially for those players that are carrying knocks.

“It’s a good thing,” he said. “We break our season down into blocks and we knew we had five weeks at the start before this break.

“That was important going into Colchester because the lads knew they could give it everything to get a result and then get a deserved rest.

“They’ll keep ticking over but it’s important they are fresh for the next block of five weeks.”

Shelford’s upcoming batch of fixtures includes a trip to table-topping Westcombe Park, while they also have match ups with Sudbury (in fourth place in the league) and CS Stags (fifth) to prepare for.

And Cotterill is hoping to see further improvement in the attacking side of the game going into those contests.

“The next five games are against good teams and they’ll be massive challenges,” he added.

“We’ll enjoy our rewards so far but the focus is on the next block of five because they’re big tests.

“We’ll need to go up a gear, especially in attack. We saw signs of it at Colchester because we scored five tries and it could have been more.

“In defence if you work hard and stay connected you can do the job well and we’ve been doing that, but there is a lot more detail in attacking.

“We’re up against stronger defences this season so we’re having to be smarter and more intelligent to break them down.

“There were signs it was building against Colchester and it will need to continue in the games to come.”