Squad depth holds the key for Chinnor
Chinnor boss Matt Williams is fully aware logic makes his side favourites to go up this season but he is not getting carried away with that – predicting at least six teams will battle it out for the National Two South crown.
With both Bishop’s Stortford and Old Elthamians being promoted to National One and Blaydon and Macclesfield dropping to National Two North, it is expected that Chinnor, who finished third last season, will make the step up this time around.
But while Williams admits that is his target, he is expecting many challengers in what should be an exciting season.
“Promotion is our goal this year and logic says we’re favourites because we finished third last year and no one came down,” he told TRP.
“But this is a very strong league this season and I reckon at least six teams will be looking at promotion.
“A lot of director of rugby have looked at the fact that no one has come down and seen it as a great opportunity to get out.
“Redruth have a very good team and Cinderford have recruited heavily and have a fine squad on paper.
“Our two local rivals, Redingensians and Henley, are chomping at the bit while Taunton are always there or thereabouts.
“Promotion will come down to who’s got the best squad rather than the best starting XV and that’s what I’ve focussed on this summer.”
Williams has had to deal with high profile departures over the summer but pre-season training has gone smoothly and their friendly fixtures could not have gone better with two resounding wins over Welsh Premiership side Ebbw Vale and National Two North powerhouse Stourbridge.
He added: “I’ve been here for three years and I’ve fallen foul in the past of having a great team but not a great squad. This year I believe we have a really good squad and that shows we’re serious about promotion.
“Having finished third, it was vital for us to retain most of our squad if we wanted to push on and I managed to retain 20 of the 26.
“We were back training mid-June because we lost some very experienced players so the average age has dropped by quite a few years and we needed to bed them in.”
Veterans Nathan Hannay and Bevon Armitage both retired while the highly-rated trio of Jamie Townsend, Tom Burns and Jay Tyack were snapped up by Richmond, Rotherham and Moseley.
Williams added: “Our two pre-season games were against strong opposition but we managed to win both. So we’ve had a really good start, there’s no two ways about it.
“But our sole goal now is to take it game by game and see where we end up after the 30 games.
“If we do that hopefully the table will take care of itself.”