The season began with a new President, new Chair, new Coach AND a new Captain. Adrian Robinson a stalwart of the pack during the early seasons and for many years a great supporter of the Club, agreed to serve a 3yr term as President. Tim Wright, who served in many Committee roles over the years agreed to step up as Chair. Will Giddings agreed to take on the Coaching with a new positivity around the players. Finally, Matt Rose agreed to become the new Captain and really embracing the job and with some confidence.

However, all that positivity was ultimately dampened with the dreaded ‘R-word’. The ‘mid-table respectability’ of last season was more difficult to achieve with a smaller squad, further travelling and the continually difficult competition. The opposition always seems to be getting better and though every game continued to be hard-fought, wins were very difficult to achieve and losing bonus points harder to achieve. In the end the side earned more victories (8 to last season’s 6) and almost as many points scored (425 to last season’s 441), the table never lies and sadly we were ranked 11th and relegated to RFU Level-9.

Having won 3 of the first 5-matches hopes were high, but then only a single more victory before Christmas but further defeats after left the situation dire until mid-February when a mad dash to try and avoid the inevitable, with 4-victories from the last 7-matches, but sadly other teams in similar positions were also winning, so relegation was confirmed. The 1st XV played 22-matches with 1-game awarded to the opposition, due to being unable to field a team. In a total of 425-points and 54-tries the Top Points Scorer was again Alex Sparks with 112pts (4-tries, 13-conversions & 22-penalties) but Sid Gittens 102pts (9-tries, 18-conversions and 7-penalties) was much closer this season. Top Try Scorer was Sid Gittens (9), followed by Tom Leach (5) and Alex Sparks, Alex Homer and Ollie Davies each with 4-tries each. Again, the fact that 22-different players managed at least a single try was testament to the numbers of players involved and their availability.

Again, it was sad that we were unable to get a Development or 2nd XV team out. However, what was developmental, was that new Coach Will Giddings was beginning to move players into different positions to encourage an understanding of what was expected of each other and to strengthen flexibility and depth. The number of players involved in the end of season Tour, as 30-players went to Cardiff to play a charity side Headway XV, featuring a former Cleobury player in Matt Jones.