Cambridge Rugby Club’s Elias Caven back to feature in RFU Championship after quad injury

Elias Caven is keen to make up for lost time after his recent return to action for Cambridge.

Last season’s leading try scorer suffered a grade three tear of his quad muscle during the warm-up prior to 26-21 victory at Caldy in late September.

It was a complaint that ruled the winger out of all three of October’s three RFU Championship fixtures, but he recovered in time to feature as a second-half replacement in the 52-17 defeat at Doncaster Knights on 30 November.

And he followed that up last weekend with a first start since the opening day of the season as Cambridge suffered a 43-10 defeat at the hands of visiting Nottingham.

Caven, who scored one of Cambridge’s two tries in the loss, said: “It was tough to be out for almost three months in the end.

“We didn’t know how serious it was at the time but after the scan I ended up missing quite a bit of rugby.

“I’ve been at the games – both home and away – because the toughest part about being injured is not feeling part of things. I wanted to stay as connected as I could.

“Watching games can be hard because you see certain situations where you feel you can impact how the team is playing. You sit there and think that maybe you could have done things a bit differently.

“I’m now looking forward to getting as many minutes as I can under my belt.

“I know what I can bring to the team and I back myself to be a finisher when selected.”

Caven has returned to a second-from-bottom Cambridge side that has suffered back-to-back defeats ahead of their trip to second-placed Ealing Trailfinders on Saturday (14 December).

Having had a watching brief for much of the campaign, Caven believes that getting the ‘attack firing’ is key to an upturn in results.

He added: “We had those two early wins but we reflected honestly and those weren’t the best performances.

“At the same time, winning when you’re not playing well is a good thing.

“But we’ve suffered five defeats now and some of those have been disappointing.

“I think it’s only a matter of time (until results turn). The difference between this year’s squad and last season’s squad is the depth we have now.

“Games would slip away from us last season because we didn’t have that depth, but now we can alternate players and the team remains strong.

“We’ve just got to get the attack firing. It might be a confidence or a belief thing, but once we get it going the momentum and confidence will come.”