Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Pratt: No let up
SAME INTENSITY WANTED AGAINST FELLOW STRUGGLERS
Head of rugby Andy Pratt says Canterbury must approach the home game against fellow strugglers Hull with the same intensity they produced against title favourites Richmond on Saturday. The city club, one off the bottom of National League 1, seriously rattled leaders Richmond before succumbing to a 27-10 defeat in London. Canterbury were similarly combative in the match before that, being edged out 7-0 at home by Chinnor, and Pratt says his players must look to maintain those standards for the visit of Ionians, the only side below them in the table. Pratt said: “I’m not going to go overboard because at the end of the day we still lost (at Richmond) but the response from the players since the Darlington game (which they lost 64-14) has been very good. “I’ve been really pleased with the last couple of performances. “There are still areas we can improve on, we’re not quite as ruthless as the opposition but when we get it right we are capable of shocking teams, and on Saturday the lads’ mentality was very good.”
Only one point separates Canterbury and Hull at the foot of the table, but Pratt says he won’t be taking anything for granted, just because his side have home advantage
He said: “Hull will be targeting this game as an opportunity, they’ve had a similar season to us so it should be interesting. “We’ve got to make sure we get the mentality right. “One of the things we talked about after Saturday is that we can’t suddenly think everything’s all right with the world because the result was better than the first time we played Richmond (Canterbury lost 50-0 in November). “We’ve done that previously when we’ve had positive performances, we’ve maybe sat back during the week. We can’t do that, we’ve got to make sure
‘I’ve been really pleased with the last couple of performances’
our approach is right.”
The Hull game is one of six left for Canterbury and Pratt says they would love to add to their solitary win – achieved against Cinderford in December. He added: “We genuinely want to finish as high as we can and enjoy the experience at this level for as long as we can “There may be a couple of opportunities (for wins) but we have a saying ‘There are no fairy tales in this league’, it won’t just happen for you, but we want to go into next season with some positives.”