Dave Ward takes his newly formed Ampthill squad away to Oundle on Saturday in his first fixture as Head Coach.
With only four weeks of pre-season completed, the newly promoted to National 2 and very ambitious level 4 side that includes several ex-Championship players a number of whom have played for the Maroon & Gold will be an early measure of the Mob ahead of the new Champ Rugby season that doesn’t start for another five weeks due to the Womens Rugby World Cup.
Ampthill have started announcing the signing of new players and one of those, Louis Grimoldby, who returns to Ampthill after stints at Blues and Cambridge, captains the 29-man squad with prop Dom Hardman named as vice-captain for this game.
The squad includes multiple trialists as Ward makes his final selections before the competitive season gets underway in October.
Oundle v Ampthill XV kicks off at 2:30pm at Oundle’s Occupation Road ground. Entry is free.
Following a final training session on Thursday night, Dave Ward commented “this is an early opportunity for us to see where we are as a squad. Most of our squad haven’t played any rugby since April, so it’ll be good to blow off the cobwebs, get some minutes in the legs and start practicing what we’ve worked on in training for the past four weeks. Oundle are ahead of us in their preparations, their season starts in two weeks, and they’ll be a tough test on Saturday afternoon. We’re looking forward to it”
