Match preview – Blackheath V Canterbury

A few forced changes this week unfortunately. Tyler Oliver has a thumb injury, no fracture but will be out for between 1-3 weeks depending how it responds. Jamie Stephens moves to Number 8 and Harvey Furneaux comes on to the bench. Part of Lewis Hollidge’s loan agreement was for him not to play against Blackheath, therefor he is unavailable. Ross Gladdish starts at 13 with Vaughn Meredith joining the replacements. Cam McMillan starts at hooker after a good performance last week. Nathan Morris moves to the bench as he is managing an ankle injury.

Last week was exactly how we wanted to start the new year. I think it’s important to acknowledge that Westcliff are on a difficult part of their journey and their players battled hard for 80 minutes. All clubs go through difficult periods, and I want to wish them all the best for the rest of the season. From my perspective, I was really pleased to see the way the players performed and how their hard work keeping fit over Christmas had paid off. Three weeks without a game is a challenge and the players managed to pick up where we left off. Another positive from the weekend was seeing Will Waddington be acknowledged for his consistently strong performances by being awarded NCA National 2 East player of the week.

This weekend poses quite a different challenge for us as we face Blackheath who are sitting at the top of the table. When they visited us at home we were humbled, conceding 57 points and our focus this week has been on giving a much better account of ourselves. We have a good understanding of what our strengths are and we know if we commit to these we are a very good team, we just have to be brave enough to show it.

Matt Corker, Head Coach