Cambridge now 'acclimatised' in Championship - director of rugby Richie Williams
- Published
Richie Williams was promoted to director of rugby by Cambridge in the spring of 2020
Cambridge boss Richie Williams believes they are now "acclimatised" to playing in English rugby's second tier.
The Blood and Sand are in their first season in the Championship, having won 10 games in a row to seal promotion from National League One last May.
They finally achieved a home victory by beating Caldy 33-14 last weekend.
"That's a bit of history. It's taken longer than we'd have liked, but I'm delighted for the players," Williams told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.
Cambridge lost their first seven league matches in their centenary season before a 28-26 breakthrough success away to London Scottish just before Christmas.
And they ran in five tries against Caldy, including two for replacement Morgan Veness, to climb back off the foot of the table and join their opponents on 16 points, having played one match more.
Director of rugby Williams said: "We said when we won that London Scottish game that we felt we'd turned a corner in this league, we've become acclimatised to what we need to do to become successful.
"Caldy are not a bad side, they've been in this league for three seasons and won against some of the top teams.
"We're not doing anything massively different to what we were doing back in September, but the combination of playing teams at this level that have more resources than us and our players gaining a little more self-belief every week, probably showed in that 80-minute performance.
"We're getting there, we're climbing up that table, we would have turned a few heads with that performance but next week we have to back that up with another."
Their resolve will be tested in Saturday's lunchtime game at Doncaster - who inflicted a 61-14 defeat in Cambridge's first home game of the campaign.
"That'll be a huge test. We know what Doncaster's strengths are, they're a very direct, physical team," added Williams.
"When we played them at home, they taught us a lesson in how to play direct rugby. We're far better prepared than what we were at the start of the season. We've played up there once in the Premiership Cup [Doncaster won 38-11] and the confidence we've got from the last couple of games will put us in a really good position."
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