Shanahan praised his team's recent defensive record

Cambridge player-coach James Shanahan has called on his players to 'step up a gear' despite a 27-3 win over Cinderford on Saturday.

Cambridge are third in National League Two and have not conceded a try in three successive games.

Shanahan told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire: "I'm a bit disappointed because we have got such high standards.

"We're doing enough, but there will come a time when we have to step up a gear and hopefully we can do that."

He added: "The positive is that we haven't conceded a try for three games on the trot and we've got the bonus point."

Shanahan has identified a number of areas in which his side can improve their game.

"We need to be a bit more patient, a bit more clinical, and the big thing was our execution," he said.

"When we put those three together we usually end up scoring tries."

After the win against Cinderford he said: "It was far too often that we moved the ball to the wide channel and didn't look after it, got forced into touch or there was a knock-on, and that's not acceptable at this standard.

"It's something we spoke about during the week, and if we'd done that we should have had probably four or five more tries."

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