It’s not pitch perfect just yet for Bury coach Ford
BURY St Edmunds’ preseason preparations have been affected by a lack of rain – but head coach Jacob Ford is hoping for a fast start to the new campaign.
With National 2 South being restructured into divisions East and West, Bury go into the season as a potential wildcard for the National 2 East title.
They finished sixth last season but their bid for progression has beenblighted by the recent drought making the playing surface at The Haberden unplayable.
“We’re struggling with our pitch, so we’ve had to move our games around to accommodate that,” Ford said.
“Our pitch is like concrete at the minute and we picked up a few short-term injuries against Cambridge a couple weeks ago. We’re trying to play away from home until our pitch is able to play on which isn’t ideal.”
In the meantime, Ford has used the transfer market wisely and by bringing in more arrivals than departures, the head coach believes his squad is looking healthy.
“We’re building on where we were left off last year in terms of being as committed as we can be and focus on moving in the same direction together,” he added. “We’ve re-signed Kodie Drury-Hawkins from West Harbour in Australia and he’s settled in really well. Leroy O’Neil, Louis Martin, Jonah Varela have all embedded in nicely as well. We lost four players at the end of last season and we’ve signed seven, so it’s a nice turnaround.”
Bury start their season away to Henley on Saturday having never won at the Dry Leas and Ford recognises the physical challenge that awaits.
“We’re expecting a tough, physical game,” he went on. “It's going to be a really tough test for us and last year we lost by a point there and actually drew our home game.
“Both games were really physical so we know what to expect in terms of what they bring up front and we’re going to have to be the best version of ourselves if we’re going to have a sniff next week.
“It’s imperative we make it a fast start. We want to be in the hunt come November/December. We’ve got an incredibly tough start with away fixtures at Henley, Tonbridge and Blackheath so we’re going to have to be on it and try to pick up as many points as we can to be in with a chance. The main thing is to be really hard to beat, that’s what we’ve instilled in the squad, so I think teams will find it hard to score points against us.”
After a slow start to last season, Bury enjoyed a successful campaign in the and Ford is hoping to rectify the small margins in the games in which they lost.
He said: “How we manage games is really important. There was a lot of times where we walked off the field wondering how we lost the game. We had some incredibly tight games at home to Esher, Clifton and Redruth, the top-three teams, and we came off the pitch wondering why we didn’t get that win. Each game we improved, so for us it’s about how we close these games out and in the last 20 minutes ultimately kick up another gear and keep that momentum going.”
It’s likely to be a competitive National 2 East with Blackheath and Tonbridge Juddians coming down from National 1.
Worthing will likely be in contention once again after their fourth-place finish last season, while Henley will be hoping to pursue a title bid themselves.
“You’ve got to look at Blackheath with the squad they’ve got to be up there competing at the top with the likes of Tonbridge,” Ford added. “I’d definitely throw Worthing into that mix as well, they had a really good season last year and were a tough team to beat.
“You can’t forget the likes of Henley who’ve been up and down and have been in and around the top places for years and have got an incredibly strong squad. We’ve just got to focus on performing the best we can.”