The new season is just around the corner and this weekend (Saturday) Colchester RFC will put pre-season work into practice when they take on Gravesend, Old Haberdashers and Charlton Park in a four-way tournament at Ronald Biggs Drive in Gravesend! The 30-minute games kick off at 1.00pm.

Pre-season training sessions have been really well attended. As well as welcoming back lots of familiar faces there are some exciting new additions to the Colchester Senior Rugby Squad. Director of Rugby Anthony O’Riordan and his coaching staff are well prepared for the new season and the challenges that lie ahead.

Colchester Rugby is focusing on player development and, as set out at the AGM, bringing new blood and developing players into Senior Rugby is one of our principle aims. This weekend a number of young players will pull on the black senior shirt for the first time.

In addition to some new faces Colchester welcome back powerhouse prop James Mitchell after injury. As an experienced senior player and former 1st XV skipper, James has been the cornerstone of the Colchester pack for a number of years. This season he will help form a formidable front row with newly appointed Player Coach Joe Reid who has joined Colchester after sustained spells in the National Division and Championship rugby with the likes of Cambridge, Bury St Edmunds and Birmingham Solihull.

Pre-season games provide players with the chance to stake a claim for starting places – the final warm-up game for the 1st and 2nd XV will take place Friday 25th August when a 1st XV will take on a Ravens XV in an evening kick off, under the Mill Road floodlights.

The following week sees the start of the competitive season. The 1st XV will start their London North Division 1 campaign on September 2nd with a trip to North Walsham and on the same day The Ravens (2nd XV) will kick off their Zoo League Division Two season against Shelford 2’s at The Davey Field.

Players and coaches are very upbeat – the visit to Guernsey at the end of last season brought the squad even closer together and this is reflected in attendances at training where senior players are turning up early to training in order to hone their individual skills; there’s a uncompromising determination to fulfil our ambitions – promotion.

The current senior squad has grown and matured together. The vast majority of our players are home grown and Colchester to the core. Of our 25-man squad going to Gravesend, more than 20 of them have been nurtured through the Colchester Youth rugby system. We are steadily adding quality to that pool of players and now there’s real competition for places in all positions.

If you want to see some rugby at Mill Road there will also be a three-way friendly fixture when the Colchester 3rd ‘A’ XV host XV's from Clacton and Mersea Island RFC on Saturday 2nd September. The bar will be open and the new season up and running!