The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Skipper Sam Cooke feels his Spalding RFC side are ready to deliver their first victory of the Midlands Two East (North) season on Saturday.
Town, who are bottom of the table, have lost all five of their league games so far – but were incredibly unfortunate to go down 20-15 to Market Bosworth last time out.
Cooke and his team-mates have just enjoyed a weekend away from the pitch, but he admits that the camp are now full of enthusiasm ahead of Saturday’s trip to fellow strugglers Melbourne (3pm).
“I think it was nice for us all to have a weekend off,” said the captain. “But we’re all chomping at the bit to get back on the pitch.
“We’ve all trained well and the enthusiasm amongst the players is now back up to a level that I’d expect us to have.
“I could see things starting to click in the last game, but unfortunately they haven’t clicked quickly enough for my liking.
“We do need to cut out the individual errors and do a little better from lineouts, but I’m confident we’ll get there this weekend.
“We’ve got two bonus points on the board now, which is a boost.
“Now we need to get the first win and really kick on from there.”
Spalding will take a strong squad to Derbyshire on Saturday, with Kev Childs, Tom Duerden, Harry Harrison and a potential new signing all expected to be in the squad.
They will be without Ash Piccaver, Jordan Templer, Tim Waltham and Bruno Figueirido, though.
Although they are in the bottom three, Melbourne have picked up two positive results – having drawn 17-17 at Market Bosworth and beaten Nottingham Casuals 16-15.
Cooke admits he doesn’t know a lot about them, but is happy with his squad.
He added: “Like a lot of the sides in this league, I’m not sure what to expect from Melbourne.
“We’ve got to focus on ourselves. I’m happy with the team we’re taking there.
“It’s a strong squad, but still not quite the strongest we can field. Hopefully that’ll change in the coming weeks.”
