Cambridge House boys embark on Schools’ Cup trail

The Galgorm Road boys kick off their Northern Bank Schools’ Cup campaign on Saturday with a trip to Lurgan College.

Rab Gregg’s side already have a 29-14 victory over their opponents at the County Armagh venue under their belts this season but the Ballymena coach insists that result will count for nothing this Saturday.

“That match was played on an absolute swamp of a pitch so it gave no real indication of anything whatsoever.

“They are certainly a much bigger side than us - in purely physical terms we have ones of our smallest sides in years.

“We know we won’t win many forward battles against many teams so to counteract that, we like to try to move the ball quickly and try to use the speed and agility of our players.”

Much will depend on the impact of Cambridge House’s two Ulster under-19 representatives Timothy Small - who captains the side - and Andrew Cundell, whose brother Chris also came through the school and who has gone on to establish himself in Ballymena Rugby Club’s First XV.

“The start of the Schools’ Cup is certainly a day that the boys all look forward to - it’s still the big day in the year for them.

“Our biggest difficulty has been getting some game time - up until last Saturday we hadn’t played a game in four weeks and you certainly lose a bit of an edge.”

In that weekend game, a depleted Cambridge side lost 17-14 to Dalriada in the last play of the game.

The fact that Cambridge House now enter the competition at the second round stage after years of having to come through the pre-qualifying ‘round robin’ tournament which featured the absolute minnows of Ulster schools’ rugby is testament to the continued development of rugby in the school but Gregg insists no-one will rest on their laurels.

“We’ve come a fair way but the important thing is that we continue to work hard and progress - as the saying goes, if you stand still, you start to go backwards,” added Rab.