He’s back……it’s Geoff says…

Emma Kemmish | 01/09/2019

Bridgwater and Albion Rugby Club get their South West One (West) season off with a home fixture against Thornbury at College Way on Saturday kick off 3pm.

Director of rugby Geoff Sluman said: “Pre-season has gone well and we are really looking forward to the start of the new season. We have played warm up games against Exmouth who play in the league above us and Taunton Warriors, who won the Somerset Cup at the end of last season so have had some really testing conditions – which is exactly what we wanted.

“In addition we had a live joint training session with Wiveliscombe RFC – that was very beneficial as it combined things like live scrummaging and then finished with 40 minutes of match condition game.

“The guys not involved with the first team for our opening league game will also have an away pre-season match away to Tiverton Second XV as our Seconds do not have a league fixture until the following week.”

Geoff went on: “ I think in an ideal world we would have liked one more fixture as a warm up but it has not proved easy to find opposition in the pre-season so we are probably a little but “under cooked” in terms of game time. However the upside to that is that we will have fresh players who are really keen to get on the pitch and play.”

Looking forward to South West One campaign where last season the Albion finished in fourth place Geoff said: “No doubt, it will be an interesting league this season, every team has ambition to improve during the closed season so we won’t know how all that will fall to ground until after the first four or five league matches when several teams have played each other.

“Last season proved that conventional logic does not always ring true. Historically you would expect teams that come into our league from the league above will be strong and the teams that get promoted from the league below may struggle. Well that definitely was not the case last year. St Ives who came into the league from the league below finished in sixth place and above Hornets who came into the league by being relegated from the league above. Keynsham who came into the league from the league below finished in ninth place and above Hornets.

“We lost some very good teams from our league at the end of last year who were relegated -Cullompton and Teignmouth both of whom were good sides but still found themselves going down. What it all says to us is that you can’t take anything for granted, improving is just not enough and we have to improve more than everyone else.”

Regarding Saturday’s opponents Geoff said: “Our first fixture is against Thornbury at home. We have played Thornbury many times and know it will be a competitive match.” He added: “Our team has prepared well ,the coaches and the players have all worked hard so we will go into the game full of confidence. The kick-off is at 3pm, so please come along and support if you can.”

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