President’s Welcome Graham Armitage

A very warm welcome to you all today including our visitors from Richmond for our second fixture within a few weeks, this time in the Championship Cup. We have already faced Richmond three times this season having won both league fixtures whilst losing in the first round of the Cup last autumn.

The Cup fixture today finds both Richmond and Caldy at the wrong end of the pool table with little apart from pride riding on today’s result. Both teams will be more concerned with the remaining league fixtures to come this season with one team in the league almost certainly facing relegation this year following recent events and decisions by the RFU. I think we all agree that it is fairly incredible that promotion and relegation decisions are only being considered and are still to be finalised in the Championship at such a late stage in the season.

Last week Caldy faced the long trip south to Cornish Pirates again in the Cup, possibly a trip too far with Caldy losing eventually by 52 points to 5. However this was a further opportunity to expose a number of junior squad members to the intensity of Championship Rugby, and Caldy responded well with a half time score of 19 – 5, having given the home side a reasonable test until this stage. Losing Ben Jones early in the game to injury and Tom Fletcher to a yellow card before half time did little to improve our chances and the Cornish side eased away in the second half to a comfortable and well deserved victory. Pirates were obviously up for this game, unbeaten with a home draw beckoning in the Cup knock out rounds, a fact that was fully appreciated by a large partisan crowd. Caldy will be back in Cornwall for a league game in April which we hope will be considerably more competitive.

Richmond, our visitors today, have an illustrious history, having been formed in 1861 and becoming one of the founder members of the RFU which was formed some ten years later. Their home has been at the Richmond Athletic Ground (RAG) since 1889, they played the first All Blacks touring side in 1905, and were part of the first match to be held at Twickenham in 1909. They have provided numerous international players over the years and despite their ups and downs since the advent of professional rugby have been regular members of the Championship in recent years.

Today we welcome their President Chris Mills, Chairman John Heaton and their guests to lunch today and, having been present in January when they were last here, can expect another competitive and entertaining performance from