Ludlow boss wants his new-look side to find a voice
Head coach Mikey Jones is optimistic his youthful Ludlow can find their voices as the season kickstarts this weekend.
It has been a summer of high-profile exits from The Linney with long-serving player-coach Joe Doyle hanging up his boots and last season’s 31-try top scorer Will Hodnet exiting for Luctonians, alongside James Mear.
Jones remains confident Ludlow can reset and push on to another competitive finish in Regional Two Midlands West.
“We’re trying new players in different positions and we’ll see how it goes,” said boss Jones. “There’s young lads trying to different roles, three big voices have been taken out of our team, so it’s waiting for the young lads to find their feet.
“It’s definitely a reset but our standards are still as high as possible, we hope to be as high as possible, I don’t see any reason why we can’t be up there, we just need to gel quickly.
“We have young players who’ve played a lot of rugby and their voices will get heard this year with some big voices gone.”
The Linney Men open up with a home clash against Newent on Saturday (3pm). The Gloucestershire visitors are one of several new opponents for Ludlow this term after a reshuffle has brought different sides to the league.
Head coach Jones has a couple of players missing through holidays this weekend but is hopeful of being at full strength before long. He added: “We’ve finished fourth, third, do we want to finish second? Probably not. We’re definitely going to compete and be up and around it.”
