Pre-season pleases Southend coach

Lucy Bowers
BBC Essex Blast reporter

Southend are to play Cambridge in one of their pre-season matches

Southend Rugby Club head coach Andy Holloway feels his squad have progressed well since last season.

The Essex side beat Leicester Lions in their first of three pre-season matches after two months of training.

Southend are looking to better their performance after last season's relegation from National League Two.

"There's about 10-15% of new stuff that we've introducing to keep it fresh and keep people re-enthused," Holloway told BBC Essex.

The club have signed several new players but the majority of the squad remain for another season.

"We've managed to retain about 95% of our players from last season," he added.

"It's not that the players we had there already weren't good enough. It's more of a depth thing whereby if we pick up a couple of injuries, we're not too thin on the ground in certain positions."

The core of what we were doing from Christmas onwards last year, there wasn't an awful lot wrong with it - we lost an awful lot of close games

Southend head coach Andy Holloway

Southend travel to Worthing for their first game of the season on 5 September and the team are hoping to move on positively from their opening pre-season victory.

"The core of what we were doing, from Christmas onwards last year, there wasn't an awful lot wrong with it," said Holloway.

"As shown by the results, we lost an awful lot of close games."

Holloway also gave his thoughts on the prospect of rugby sevens becoming an Olympic sport for 2016.

"[It is a chance for] parts of the world who maybe don't get the chance to take the stage in the Rugby World Cup, it's an excellent way of pushing the game in that respect.

"Kenya, for example, are very strong in terms of their sevens rugby but not so in 15-a-side," he said.

"Hopefully it will widen where it is played and the number of people who play it."