First half line-up

1 Sam Vail 2 Shannon Neyland 3 Richard Cowley

4 Rob Bevington 5 Nick Wells

6 Carl (ZigZag) Goodey 7 Chris (The Glove) Milne 8 Stewart (Fabio) Faben

9 Graham (Capt) Beckford 10 Daray Horn 15 Lloyd Smart

11 Alex Moreau 12 Will Cleare 13 Colin Weir 14 Jay Hall

Second half line-up

1 Shannon Neyland 2 Graham (Capt) Beckford 3 Rik Relph

4 Rob Bevington 5 Carl (ZigZag) Goodey

6 Ritz Steytler 7 Chris (The Glove) Milne 8 Stewart (Fabio) Faben

9 Chris (Flora) Beddow 10 Daray Horn 15 John Bateson

11 Lloyd Smart 12 James (Casper) Thomas 13 Jay Hall 14 Matt (Paperboy) Turner

Match report by Eddie Murphy

It was a horrible day both for playing and standing on the sidelines. The wind howled and squally showers made handling and difficult.

Renegades kicked off into the strong wind. Fabio's enthusiastic chase was a bit too enthusiastic - he was penalized for tackling the opposition catcher while he was off the ground. From the off, Cambridge piled on the pressure. They used their first penalty to get into the Gades 22 and kept coming back despite clearances against the wind. After 10 minutes or so, they were held out almost on the Gades line in a fine piece of defending conceding a five metre scrum. Despite holding the strong pack, Cambridge broke and scored on the right hand side in a position from which they converted easily (0-7).

Following the try, there was a Gades counter attack. Repeated forays into the Cambridge 22 went unrewarded by any points. Eventually, Cambridge took the game back to the Gades 22. An unluckily miss-kicked clearance from Daray ended up with one of the Cambridge props who showed some impressive pace, launching a move that resulted in an excellent try on the right - too far to the right be converted on such a blustery day (0-12).

The rest of the first half was end-to-end with some good attacking and defending by both teams. Cambridge had the upper hand though because of their powerful pack - they were confident out of the scrum and Gades found it difficult to play from a scrum going backwards. However, despite the Cambridge advantages of pack and wind, Gades defended well and the score remained 0-12 at half time.

Having tried nasty cop against Saffron Walden the previous week, Beaky was full of praise (rightly so) for a good first half performance. Only two penalties conceded in the whole first half - a massive improvement on previous performances. There were a lot of changes to the line-up in the second half to give everyone a run out.

The second half opened with Cambridge putting the ball out from the Kickoff. From the scrum, Daray used the wind to kick Gades into the Cambridge 22. This established a pattern of play which dominated the second half - long kicks to keep bringing Gades back into the Cambridge 22. However, the Cambridge defence was solid and the territorial advantage proved impossible to convert into points.

Cambridge only entered the Gades 22 twice in the second half. The first time they went almost to the line but conceded a penalty which Daray cleared comfortably. The second was minutes from the end of the game when a break took them to the line and the myopic referee failed to see both the knock-on and the forward pass, either of which should have invalidated the try awarded under the posts which was followed by a straightforward conversion (0-19).

At the final whistle, the Gades's heads were not down. It was a good performance against a big, strong and technically-competent side.

Quotes!

"Well, what a game!

The renegades defence was fantastic and the scoreline was very flattering to Cambridge. They really only scored one decent try, the first was an unlucky bounce of the ball which is always hard to defend and the last try was the result of a good break by Cambridge but a forward pass and then a knock on both missed by the ref made it a very bitter pill right at the end of the game.

Great to see the backs getting in to the breakdown to secure our ball or help slow their down delivery. This helped our game a lot as they had some big forwards who were capable of pushing us off the ball had we not got rid of it early.

Their big pack was really our undoing we couldn't attack very well from a retreating scrum and they had a great attacking platform from any of their put-ins.

With a 12-0 scoreline at half time I thought we had it in the bag. The only thing we didn't try was slinging the ball out wide, we have some very fast and nimble backs we should have tested their big pack's lungs.

Well played everyone, some good big hits, far less penalties, some good handling and kicking in very testing conditions." Tom Wykes

"Just wanted to say thanks to everybody for yesterdays performance in tough conditions against tough opponents.

Thanks especially to Beaky who is leading us from the front and with his words of encouragement and sometimes admonishment has brought a cohesion to the Renegades that we have never had before. I am enjoying my rugby more now than I ever have and I believe that's all down to Beaky. Thanks mate. Thanks especially for the sore wrist that went with lifting that fat old lump, Carl!" Sam Vail

"Just like Sam, I am also enjoying rugby more than ever at the moment so thanks to all our fellow team mates.

I would also like to especially thank the Renegades Committee. You do a huge amount of work behind the scenes to make everything go smoothly (most of it we probably don't even know about or rarely consider). The most impressive thing (as I was saying to Richard in the pub on Saturday) is the smooth transition from last year - from Edward Mustard to a new and open committee; from friendlies to league, and from "turning up for fun", to "competing to win" like we all did at the weekend. It's thanks to your hard work that all I have to do is come along and play rugby. Thank you." Colin

"Sage words plus a healthy dose of manlove hmmm warm feelings!

For the second week in a row we have been bested in ruck and maul either by fair means or foul. We need to get sharper going into contact and support needs to get "there" quicker and communicate to player taking contact.

On the subject of "there" perhaps we should focus on looking for contact no more than 5m from previous breakdown and run the phases. This should mean support is always close at hand. We can get quick ball and not get sucked into rucks or mauls that against our better opponents we will lose.

This is what we did well in the opening 10mins of our first 6 games when we caught the oppo cold with our speed of processing the ball and intensity at the breakdown.

On theplus side, training clearly paid dividends with the noticeable difference to defence. SO if you haven't made it yet on a Wendesday evening, pull out all the stops to get there this week where Beaky will impart more of his considerable rugby-wisdom to continue the improvement of The Gades!

Thank you fellow players (and non-players), thank you to the committee (echo Colin's sentiments) and thank you Beaky (please see Sam's words)." Will

Try

Penalty

Conversion

Drop Goal

Nominations

Player of the Match: Daray Horn, some great kicking. Doughnut of the match: No doughnuts on the park this week.