by Tom Pritchard
AS University of South Wales prepare for their BUCS Championship final, 1st team manager Steve Savage says his side’s opponents will be shown “a huge amount of respect”.
The Gloucestershire outfit are an established top-tier side, and Savage says that despite his side winning the Premier South unbeaten, they may not necessarily be favourites.
“I’m not sure we’re favourites. I’m not playing it down, but Hartpury are a really good institution and have been to the final three times in the last four seasons, so they’re a really good side.”
The team have prepared well for what is their first cup final in three years. Speaking after their penultimate training session Savage said: “We trained really well this morning, the lads look sharp, everyone is excited about getting to a cup final.
“The next two days of training are really important to ensure me and Lee (Kendall) select the right squad, and we go into the game to try and win it.”
Savage, who oversees all sporting operations at the USW Sport Park, admits that it can be difficult to keep everyone happy when selecting a team for a cup final.
“It’s a tough one, it always is selecting the team. But my objective is simple, we’ve got to pick a team that we feel can focus on ourselves, do a job and win the game.”
Savage is confident that the strong team culture will allow players to take the selection well: “We’ve got a really good group, and they’ll understand that we’re selecting players for the right reasons, to try and get the right outcomes.”
This season saw USW win the BUCS Premier South for the first time in four years, winning six and drawing four of their ten league games.
Hartpury were their nearest rivals, finishing five points behind in second, and Savage maintains that the team’s focus will remain internal.
“It’s about us, it’s about focusing on ourselves. We’ll show Hartpury a huge amount of respect, and build our game plan around what they do.”
Savage explains that the team’s objective-setting has remained relatively simple: “It’s all about game-by-game, we spoke about tangibles at the start of the year when we built the culture around our team ethos.
“We’ve got to win something and achieve something, we’ve done that through the league programme, and the next tangible is to win the cup.”
