TRY-SCORER Joe Bridger admitted it was great to play in front of a crowd again as Rams began their pre-season with defeats to Cinderford and Barnes on Saturday.

Joe started at full back as Rams Blues went down to Cinderford 19-14, before taking a place on the right wing as the Whites lost 24-12 to Barnes.

Reflecting on the afternoon, he said: “It was nice to double-up and get a lot of minutes in – this is the period you can use to get the fitness up along with a bit of match sharpness.

“I thought we started really, really well against Cinderford, but perhaps failed to turn the screw on them and tailed off a little.

“Then against Barnes I thought again we started ok, but we just made a few errors.”

Having fallen behind to an early Barnes score, Joe benefitted from some good work by Connor Hayhow in midfield to cross against the Londoners.

And he admitted: “It was really nice to score a try – obviously I didn’t have any individual brilliance to it as the boys did all the hard work in the middle and I was just able to finish it off. But it was nice to open the account.

“It was just brilliant to be out there playing proper rugby. Obviously we had the games in May which was nice to keep us ticking over because it had been such a long time without a match, but now this is actually building towards a National One season.

“It’s a good feeling to have rugby back again.”

Rams were forced to show their trademark tenacity in defence in both games and Joe continued: “It’s what we have to bring. We’ve worked really hard to become as fit as we can be as a side and we have to make that work in defence.

“We want to bring a lot of energy and a lot of hard work and have people putting in big shots to do their bit for the team.”

And he reserved his final comments for those members of the Ramily who came to support, concluding: “It’s great to play in front of people again – it means it’s not soulless and an echo from the boys playing.

“When you make a line break you hear the roar and it gives you a big lift, so hopefully as the games go on we’ll get more and more people down.”