Saxons Blog

It’s been a hectic few months but pre-season is moving forward and we have our first scrimmage under our belts against none other than 5 time national champions, the London Cobras.

As always, we’re busy trying to recruit and get the fresh faces up to speed ahead of the season opener, and these pre-season scrimmages are a valuable tool in getting everyone up to game speed.

We’ve had some bad luck on the transfer scene this year, losing last year’s star WR Dervan Alleyne to the Premier League Coventry Jets, but on the flip side, we’ve found a promising young British Quarterback who could provide a stable foundation for the team for many years to come, and for the most part, we’ve held onto the spine of last years squad who recorded a respectable 3 – 7 record in our first season at Division 1 level.

There’s been a ton of movers and shakers this year, and us, along with the Kent Exiles and Cambridge Cats have all lost last seasons starting Quarterbacks, but our new Head Coach Chris Wallis has done an excellent job, alongside Defensive Coordinator Mike Fears, in introducing simple systems on both sides of the ball, so our veteran players can get up to speed as quickly as possible and I still insist that our starting skill position players are amongst some of the best in the country.

In short, if we stay healthy this year then were in with a great chance of playoff football – a huge achievement for only our second season in what many describe as the most competitive tier of British American Football. Right now, the short term goals are to add depth and quality to the playing squad – we know our starting 22 will cause any team problems, but we need to identify the next 11, and therein lays the challenge over the coming weeks.

The other obstacle we face this year is meeting the financial demands of competing. In previous seasons, we’ve been very fortunate in attracting sponsorship which helped a great deal towards our operating costs however, with the credit crunch still very much prominent in everyone’s minds, the players are feeling the pinch, and without those investments coming in, so is the club. We’ve made allowances, and cut some costs this year to help towards things, but if there are any local businesses out there looking for a truly unique investment opportunity with a pro-active, and community focused sports club, naturally we’d love to hear from them.

Aisde from that, its business as usual and back on the training ground ready to face Division 1 playoff contender Oxford Saints in a couple of weeks time, then our regular season kicks off with a visit to the newly promoted Colchester Gladiators on May 2nd.

Still lots of hard work ahead. Keep checking back for all the latest.