Ex-All Black Craig Newby's Cambridge facing huge uphill struggle

Any trip to Bedford is an uphill struggle, given the pitch at Goldington Road drops by nine foot from one side of the pitch to the other. However, when you’re bottom of the table without a win to your name eight rounds into the Champ Rugby season and up against a team riding high in third, the task is made that much steeper.

Fortunately for this weekend’s visitors Cambridge, most of their youthful squad, which includes Jasper Sorrell, the son of Sarries legend Kevin, have never visited the famous old ground before, so don’t bear the psychological scars of the grimmest of coffin corners. Viewers of the free-to-air coverage provided by Clubber TV and RugbyPass TV this Saturday need not adjust their screens, the slope is very real.

“If you go the other way, it is downhill,” said Cambridghe head coach, the former All Black Craig Newby, turning the conversation on its head. “Out of the 23 that will play (for Cambridge), probably 15 of them haven’t been to Bedford’s ground let alone played against Bedford. It could be a blessing around not being daunted or overwhelmed.

“Rugby is all about pressure and using the geography to create that. They’ll know that part of the ground like the back of their hand. Mike Rayer (Bedford DoR) has been there for 25 years and he’ll be passing on every bit of knowledge to the players.

“At Cambridge, it is always windy in training but for some reason, there is never any wind on Saturdays. So we have a style that we like to play into the wind and how we play with the wind, so that might help us a wee bit in how to navigate that, or to use it to our advantage, or nullify Bedford’s advantage.

“I follow the cricket, and in the Ashes the toss with the pink ball seems to be pretty important; you want to be bowling at night when the ball is swinging around corners and acting funny. So, again, the toss could be important. Do we want to start with the advantage or finish with the advantage?

“We’ll learn some lessons after this game, particularly that corner and the big crowd that get right behind them,” Newby added. “It’s pretty exciting; we’ve talked about that, about enjoying these games. It is a local derby, as far as Cambridge goes. But, again, a lot of our guys don’t know the history, so it it is up to the guys that have done so, the leadership group, to share that knowledge.

Anomalies like the Bedford slope only add to the Champ’s appeal. It’s an excellent breeding ground for young aspirational pros with designs on making it to the top, and it is also a league full of community-based clubs, colourful characters and some famous names. Fred Tuilagi, for instance, will be on Bedford’s bench. Mind you, with seven brothers in the Tuilagi clan playing rugby at one time or another, there’s always been a good chance you’ll catch one of them in action.

In the past, the Champ was known for its up-the-jumper-style rugby, where young Premiership locks would be sent to learn ‘men’s rugby’, or Champ warriors would be picked up by top-flight clubs looking for hard-nosed players on the cheap. But now the exuberance of youth has taken over, with matches fast-paced and producing an average of nine tries.

As results would suggest, this season has been a struggle for the Blood & Sand, as Cambridge are known. Newby took on the job in the summer, inheriting a squad that had finished bottom the previous two seasons, a fate that awaits them for a third time unless they can break the losing habit.

There are signs of progress, though. Having spent a lot of his time getting things right off the field – Cambridge didn’t have a gym on-site until one was recently built, for example – Newby hopes that this, in turn, will lead to an improvement in fortunes on it.

“I speak to the players all the time about how rugby doesn’t care how hard you work or what you deserve, that’s not how life and rugby works, it can be pretty cruel,” said the 46-year-old father-of-four.

“I think we are trending up in certain areas and we are competing in a lot of areas. But we are still a way away from keeping the pressure on these teams to win games.

“Take last week against Worcester (a 14-61 defeat), 25 minutes into the game we have controlled territory and possession and we have taken two really good opportunities from set-piece and we are up 14-0. Worcester had a bit of a purple patch before half-time, and it ended up 14-14 at half-time.

“We are constantly reviewing and learning and trying to improve but it is one step at a time. We can’t look too far ahead of the next opportunity.”

Hunting and shooting enthusiast Newby’s crosshairs are now set on Bedford, a club that many others hold as a model of how a Champ club operate. “Bedford are one of those teams that I look closely at and admire, around the way they play as well as the results they get. They play really good footy; they have a strong forward pack; I love the balance in their back row; they’ve got a good kicking game; they are not afraid to counterattack and move the ball to space; and Will Maisey is a class operator as well.

“They are a community club, they have got great history, they’ve got good people, and I am looking forward to seeing how they do it and I am looking forward to us putting our stamp on it and hopefully make an impression on them. Two of our goals we have on a Saturday, other than winning, is gaining respect from our opposition and the second one is making our supporters proud of us.”

What Cambridge lack for top-level experience on the pitch, their head coach has it in abundance. This is Newby’s second spell at Volac Park, Grantchester Road, having coached them between 2013 and 2015, when they were two rungs further down the ladder in National 2 South. And in between times, Newby has coached in Ireland, with Ulster, in Japan, and with the Champ’s leading team, Ealing Trailfinders.

As a player, Newby was capped three times off the bench by New Zealand in the Noughties and had a stellar first-class career, which saw him captain Otago, the Highlanders and Leicester, where he spent nine years. And the Kiwi, who true-to-type lives on a small sheep farm, in Northamptonshire, is clear that he wants to replicate those heights in his coaching career, but while also recognising there’s a big job to do at Cambridge first.

“I have got goals around where I want to coach. I want to coach Premiership,” said Newby. “I would do anything to coach at Leicester. But I am firmly rooted in Cambridge. I have a big job there, and the better I can do there, the better position I will be in to take any opportunity that comes up. I won’t stop until I, hopefully, get an opportunity and, if I don’t, it won’t be through a lack of effort or a lack of perseverance.”

By his own admission, Newby wasn’t most talented forward to wear the silver fern on his chest. But sheer determination, hard work and professionalism enabled him to stand alongside giants of the game. Cambridge are in the foothills at present, but Newby is the type of character not to slope off without putting up a fight, even if Bedford isn’t a level playing field.

The Champ Rugby match between Bedford Blues and Cambridge, on Saturday, 6 December, kick-off 15:00 GMT, is available to watch live and for free on RugbyPass TV and Clubber TV, the league’s official broadcaster partner since the start of the 2025/26 season.