Any holiday poundage and Freshers’ week hangovers knocking around the Blue’s Grange Road changing room were not visible on Wednesday night as Cambridge produced a very confident display to brush aside a competitive, but ultimately inferior, Royal Engineers side.  The pack dominated in both the loose and the scrums with Maidment and Kururangi producing strong performances, while out in the backs the individual talent of Richards, Burton and especially Cushing ensured that Cambridge always looked as though they would finish the game victorious.

Yet this was not an infallible performance.  Cambridge may have displayed an admirable ambition to play from deep but they should only do it when the situation allows.   Their occaisionally unprudent playing style allowed the Engineers to take an early lead when the otherwise excellent outside half Cushing was caught with the ball inside his own 22.  The Engineer’s forwards piled in, winning the turn over so that winger Ash could canter in for an easy score.

It did not take long for Cambridge to strike back, however, with Cushing making amends for his earlier error by dancing through two tackles and offloading to lock forward Tom Harrington, who crossed for an easy score.  The quick feet and skillful offloading of Cambridge’s new number 10 was at the heart of everything that Cambridge did well in this game.   Number 8 Ben Maidment was unlucky not to score from another one of Cushing’s breaks.  After gliding through a gap in the Engineers’ relatively porous defensive line, the fly half gave an inside ball to the forward.  He looked to have scored before the referee inexplicably called the game to halt only offering the Blues an attacking scrum rather than a try. The pressure put on by the Light Blues at scrum time eventually resulted in a penalty which Cushing duly converted, justly giving Cambridge the lead for the first time.

However captain Jimmy Richards and the Blues’ management will not have been completely happy with the first half performance.  Despite their clear superiority, Cambridge struggled to get away from the opposition.  Their indiscipline at the break down allowed the Engineers to stay in the game with Lance Corporal Slade-Jones converting  the penalty shots at goal. It took a Richards try just before half time, once again created by a Cushings break, to give the Blues a bit of breathing space and they went into half time with a 5 point lead.

The second half began much as the first ended. To a chorus of indecipherable football chants from a group of German schoolchildren, Ilia Cherezov put the Blues immediately on the front foot, breaking through some weak Engineers tackling to offload to fellow Johnian Fred Burdon who crossed to score. Ten minutes later Cambridge scored again, this time with Burdon breaking the line before passing it to winger Loudon who trotted over.

The Blues looked set, yet disappointingly they seemed to back off once victory had been assured and the last twenty minutes were characterised by some sloppy tackling in midfield and some needless handling errors. The Engineers got a try back ten minutes from the end, but the game had effectively been ended by Loudon’s score in the 60th minute.

Whilst not a perfect performance from the Blues, this was an extremely comfortable victory. On occasions it may be better to play more conservatively and the execution of the backs’ moves needs to become sharper, yet these are things that will no doubt come with time and practice. Such a strong performance in the first game of the new season bodes well for another excellent season for Cambridge.