Sixth Raiders recruit to be in place next week
FOUR down, two to go.
That’s the number of new recruits Raiders will have secured in time for next week’s pre-season home friendly against
National 2 North side Macclesfield.
Throw in a couple of new returning faces in Matt Thomas and Dom Rice and it will be a much-changed Raiders squad that takes on a new challenge in National Two South come September.
Director of Rugby Jordan Reynolds said the recruitment drive was wholly necessary and not finished yet.
‘To be honest, when we started pre-season we had around 35 training, but in the last two weeks we only had about 13 first-team guys after picking up a lot of injuries.
‘They are all starting to come back now, so hopefully we can now kick on and get through these two pre-season games.’
The recruits offset the loss of Dan Hill, who has left the island, the retirement of full-back Luke Sayer and the long-term injury to stand-off Owen Thomas, who will be out until January after recent surgery on his troublesome shoulder.
‘Luke is definitely retired, BC [Blair Campbell] wants to play but is injured at the moment and Malcolm [Barnes] is intent on more playing than not, but he wants to be very much a third-string option across the park.’
The new men are winger Daley Aremu, acquired from fellow National Two South side Old Albanian, Nicolas Alexandre, Owen Clemett and, most recently, David Anderson.
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