Rugby Club coach aims to build on last season

The main source of angst was the Braidmen’s dip in form in the second half of the season, which put paid to hopes of back-to-back promotions in the Ulster Bank All-Ireland League.

“I suppose at the start of the season, if someone told us we would win a cup, reach the final of another cup competition and finish in the top half of the table in our first season back in Division 1B, we would probably have taken that quite happily,” Andrews told Times Sport.

“But there’s no doubt that the second half of the season was a disappointment, in that we didn’t manage to hold on and finish in the top two or three.

“But we will be better for the experience. Winning the Ulster Senior Cup, after the club had gone a number of seasons with no silverware, was a big boost for us because it gave the players a taste for more success.

“They have a year behind them in Division 1B, they will know about what is required to win games in this league, they will know about the matchday nerves involved and they will know more about the opposition.

“It will be a hugely competitive division because as well as the Ulster teams involved in it, you also have Blackrock coming down from Division 1A and a very good Dublin University team coming up from 2A.

“We saw last season how many of our games were decided by a single score either way, so we know we have to be more clinical in attack and tighter in defence.

“We have to aim to move on from last season so we have to be targeting promotion, while winning another trophy would be a bonus.

“We also want to make more of an impact in the Ulster League. We will still give experience to players in that competition but we want to win more matches as we found that changing the line-up between Ulster League and All-Ireland League slowed down our momentum a bit.

“We have been training since May, with the exception of a couple of weeks in June, with our strength and conditioning coach Ryan Keating and the boys look strong and fit,” added Andrews, who signed a new two-year deal to stay at Eaton Park near the end of the previous campaign