Plymouth Albion 23 Cambridge 18

Why does it always rain heavily when Plymouth Albion have at match at Brickfields.

In recent seasons Albion haven’t had the best of luck weather wise with regards attracting spectators and it was the same again on Saturday as only 688 watched them open their National 1 season with a hard earned but well deserved victory over newly promoted Cambridge.

Speaking about the performance new Albion head coach Dan Parkes said, “It’s was good to get a win under our belts in the first competitive game of the season.

“I was happy with the performance especially the defence late on in the game. It was a messy match but I thought we had more control than we realised.”

Parkes added, “What is good is that despite winning the match we have plenty to work on but it was nice for our supporters to see us win first up.”

Albion’s win would have been more comprehensive if full back Matt Shepherd had had his kicking boots on.

In difficult conditions for goal kicking the normally reliable Shepherd missed five of his eight kicks at goal.

This was also a game Albion could easily have lost but the squad deserve great credit for the way they stuck to their task to ensure they started the campaign on the right note.

Albion gave league debuts to seven new players with five of them being in a youthful back line that was missing injured player coach Kieran Hallett.

The game kicked off in pouring rain and it took Albion only 50 seconds to score their first try of the season.

Cambridge made a mess of receiving the kick off and from the resultant line out hooker Jamie Salter finished off a catch and drive move.

Shepherd hit an upright with his conversion kick.

Cambridge opened their account when fly half Jack Green slotted a 40 metre penalty given away by Albion at a scrum.

Albion quickly regained their five point advantage when Shepherd kicked an excellent penalty from the touchline after the visitors were penalised at a ruck.

With Albion struggling in the set scrum the coaching team decided to change the whole front row just before the half hour mark.

As the game moved into stoppage time at the end of the first half Albion stretched their lead to two scores when Shepherd kicked a penalty from the 22.