Confident Roux targets top six finish for Dorking
Dorking are playing in their first ever season in the National Leagues but their director of rugby Armand Roux has claimed they aren't here to make up the numbers and has set his sights on a top six finish.
The Surrey-based side went into this weekend second in National Two East after four wins from their opening six games, and Roux is delighted with how side has accustomed to the step up from last season's London & SE Premier.
Roux, below, said: “It's really pleasing, our goal was to finish in the top six. I said when we went up that I don't want to be going up for survival, I want us to compete. There's a lot more games to go and a lot can change but for us that's still the goal. We analyse each week, not just the opposition but ourselves as well. We must continue to improve and not get complacent, we've had two halves of rugby where we were a bit complacent but to win ugly like we did last week is also nice.
“The players are enjoying the step up. We're always a team that wants to play a bit of rugby, the problem we have is teams that we come up against quite often don't want to play positive rugby. So, some games can be decided by the team that scraps the most.
“The league is quite attritional, so injuries are going to happen and there's an emphasis on looking after bodies off the pitch in terms of our strength and conditioning programmes, with a large emphasis on recovery.”
Dorking recently beat Canterbury away from home 12-10 and with the match streamed on their club website, Roux was pleased to see people enjoying the win in their clubhouse.
He added: “There was 250 people at the club watching that game on the screens, so that was nice to see pictures of people enjoying our game with a beer.
The culture is good and the mood is great at the club, so long may it continue.”
