Shelford will not rest on their laurels after promotion to the London & SE Regional 1SE division

Will Cotterill has set Shelford sights on more success this season after their promotion to London & SE Regional 1SE division.

They were crowned champions of London 1N in April, having won 24 of their 26 games, losing just once and drawing their other game.

It booked a spot in the new-look division, which is a venture into the unknown for everyone after the RFU’s reorganisation of the pyramid.

“In our heads, we want to continue being successful,” said Shelford director of rugby Cotterill.

“There is no point saying we’re up now and think that we can’t continue to be successful.

“The level of that success? I’m hopeful we will get a bit of an idea of how competitive the league will be in the first five or six-game block that we’ve got.

“Personally, I would like to think that we can be up the top end of the table.

“In conversation with the playing group and the leaders in the group, we all feel that if we continue developing, continue improving that we should be able to get up to the top end of the table.

“The three best teams in the league went up to National Two as well so essentially you are playing against teams that finished fourth and below in that league.

“We have high hopes.”

Cotterill anticipates that the level of physicality in the division will be the biggest challenge to Shelford in the new tier.

They have been working on technique in and around the scrum, line-out and maul during the summer with Jono Farmer, who has come in as a forwards’ coach, and Dan Richmond, who is a consultant coach assisting with the scrum and line-out.

“We’ve never been the biggest team, even in London 1N we weren’t the biggest team and you come up against some teams with dominant forward packs and I think that it is only going to be more of a challenge now we’ve gone up a league,” said Cotterill.

“At the end of the day, in rugby union size is still a premium and if you’re playing against a forward pack that’s got 30, 40 or 50kg on you, it does become a bit of an effort to win your own ball at set piece time, particularly at the scrum.

“We’re a very good team, and we’ve got a few key individuals in the team that are hard to handle but from what I gather as you go up the league, there are players in that league, the quality of that player we haven’t played against before.

“That is something that we’ve got to make sure that collectively we can handle any stand-out individual that we play against.”

Shelford have set objectives around their playing style for the new campaign, and it is built around quick ball.

It is a style that has been framed on their home all-weather pitch, and there are plenty more teams in the new division that also play on 3G pitches.

“We want to be able to win the collision better to produce quicker ball,” said Cotterill.

“We want to follow in the Irish mould, win a collision, produce quick ruck ball, and play with width off quick ruck ball.

“We also want to be better off our launches, so if we do have a set piece then we want to get the ball out of the set piece quickly and use those first two or three phases really well.

“There is a trend in rugby at the moment that the better teams are really effective off the first, second or third phase.

“Then I think our game management and kicking strategy are going to be more important this year as we come up against better organised opposition and better organised defensive systems from the opposition.”

Shelford’s main recruits during the summer have been scrum-half Fin Creighton, winger Sike Shields and young prop Bradley Robinson, and they have retained the majority of their promotion-winning squad.

They have also been boosted by more players making their return to rugby after the peak of the Covid pandemic, and that has strengthened all levels of the club.

But it is going to be a matter of time before they really know what to expect.

“It’s going to be really hard to gauge, to be honest,” added Cotterill.

“We’ve got five games initially against Tunbridge Wells, Tring, Harpenden, Bedford Athletic and Colchester and I’m hoping after that run, we’ve settled into the league and we’ve got a better idea of what we need to do to be very competitive.”