IT is a great pleasure as always to welcome all those involved with Cinderford to Old Bath Road for this afternoon's National One fixture.
We’ve had great battles with Cinderford and there’s never any quarter given by them, or any Gloucestershire club.
To be fair there’s not been much given by us either, although we’ve had one or two games where we’ve wobbled and not matched up on their extraordinarily good front row.
But we’ve won some narrowly, lost some narrowly and both sides at times have played some extremely good attacking rugby – neither is one-dimensional and it should make for an entertaining game.
There are a lot of similarities between the sides in that they like to play off a strong set-piece, find space and there’s a huge amount of mutual respect.
When the Rugby Paper picked the Team of the Year and left out George Porter and James Baker, I suggested it would be good to see how the selected team did against them because I know who my money would be going on!
We have lost three games for the first time in seven years, but that also shows the quality and consistency of the squad.
We’ve been in and could have won them, but it’s also a credit to National One that we’re still only a point off the leaders.
It’s a cliché in most leagues where people say anyone can beat anyone, but normally there are a couple of sides down the bottom who can be beaten.
But when asked which three sides are going down, I genuinely believe anyone from 1-14 – it’s that tough.
Leicester were bottom when we played them and they put on an outstanding show, Sale did the same and DMP came down with erratic form and they put in a great performance.
In each game we’ve lost the rugby has been outstanding, but we’re getting better and we’ve got young players coming in, so that’s extremely exciting because we’ve had a couple of knocks.
We are delighted to have Vale & West as our matchday sponsor, and what I love about those guys is they’re so enthusiastic.
They get right into it, get behind the team and it’s just fantastic – a massive thank you to them.
We’re a real community club getting out there, particularly in the schools, and it’s great when local businesses get involved because it’s them who allow us to continue the outreach.
Penultimately, I would like to wish our Colts the best of luck in their National Cup last 32 game at Marlborough tomorrow.
Some of the games I remember the most are Colts games – in the 2014/15 season they had a rough ride and didn’t win before Christmas.
They eventually won at Aylesbury in February, and it was a terrific game from which we just got better and better.
I’m never going to forget Sunday because we haven’t had (scrum-halves) Aiden (Pugh) available due to being an England Academy Player, Louie (Roumignac) with a broken hand and our very good No. 8 Jack (Mander) got a concussion in the fourth minute.
Despite all this we were 12-0 up at half-time, but Windsor – who’ve got a super side – emptied their bench which is mainly Harlequins and south central Academy players and they get back to 12-12 before Matt Cox kicked three points for the win – I think it’s the first time they’ve lost in three years.
Credit to Windsor, they’re very nice lads who were all over shaking hands straight after the game, but for us it was gutsy beyond belief and a tremendous performance – the guys worked so hard for each other and were an absolute credit to the coaching team and themselves. It was a big pick-me-up after Saturday!
Finally, a fortnight ago when we were 19 points behind against Darlington I was thinking ‘oh no’ and feeling sorry for the supporters.
But then the remarkable recovery started and with two good tries I thought we might have been playing The Great Escape as the boys came off the pitch.
Ultimately it didn’t happen, but the crowd were magnificent and lifted the whole atmosphere – my ask is you get behind the guys again because they truly appreciate it.
We’ve got young, local lads coming through – the back three today has Charlie Robson as the most experienced – and hopefully the supporters can make a difference again. You are the 16th man.