Gordonians head coach Jim Greenwood hopes the club’s second string can continue to push the first XV for competition.
Their second team are unbeaten from six league games and top Caledonia North Three, having scored 241 points so far.
At the start of the season, Greenwood set them the target of achieving promotion, to get them playing as high standard of rugby as possible.
The firsts picked up their second win of the campaign with a 51-15 thumping of Whitecraigs last weekend. They moved out of the National Two relegation zone with the triumph.
Both sides are on the road this weekend, against Peebles and Stornoway respectively, and Greenwood is looking for progress on both fronts.
He said: “We’ve picked up a couple of wins now, but there’s still a lot to work on. We’re doing video analysis each week and there’s still some inaccuracies in our game.
“The win over Whitecraigs we were very happy with. The second team are looking pretty good – they remain unbeaten, although we’re struggling for numbers for Stornoway this weekend.
“It’s massively important (the performance of the seconds). The better standard of rugby your second team play will push the skill-sets of those players. That will mean the gap between the firsts and seconds is smaller. That creates more competition and that pushes the guys at the top.
“One of the goals I outlined at the start of the season was to get the second team promoted. That’s needed to happen for a few seasons now and, with the guys we recruited over lockdown and the change of culture at the club, numbers at training are good.
“The second team has got a good vibe about it and I’m hoping they carry that through to the end of the season, so we can get them into North Two.”
The challenge for Greenwood and the Gordonians firsts is to put a winning run together, which has evaded them so far this season.
Greenwood, who is also rugby coach for Robert Gordon’s College, also has a balancing act with players who have commitments for the university team during the week.
He added: “There are a lot of dynamics within the team we have to manage. We’ve got guys that work offshore, we’ve got a lot of guys who play university rugby on a Wednesday and train for that on a Monday.
“It’s managing their workload and how much we give them during the week.
“Against a team like Peebles, they’re not going to tire in the last part of the game, which they might potentially after a Wednesday game.
“I can’t speak for other clubs and how many university students they have in their ranks, but it’s something the coaching staff and I have discussed.
“We have to support those guys, because they’re only at university once. I would never deprive them of that, but we ask them to be responsible for the condition they turn up to training and game-day in.”
