The weather may have been a little on the chilly side these past few weeks, but one thing is for sure… there will be a red-hot reception awaiting Camberley when they come to Gloucester on Saturday.

So says Coney Hill joint head coach Craig Greer who is fired up and ready for his club’s RFU Intermediate Cup showdown with the London Two South West side.

The prize couldn’t be a bigger – a place in the final at Twickenham on Sunday 6th May – and Greer is relishing the chance to go head-to-head with the club from Surrey.

“I can’t wait to get stuck into them,” said the 25-year-old tighthead prop. “It’s a huge game, it’s massive for the club. Coney Hill have got to the semi-final stage before but they’ve never got to Twickenham.”

Greer, originally from West Scotland, shares the joint head coach duties at Coney Hill with man mountain Andy Macrae, who is one of those players who is good enough to play in the forwards or the backs.

They joined forces at the start of last season and it was something of a baptism of fire, because the club were relegated from South West One West at the end of the campaign.

But they have turned things round to such an extent that they are within touching distance of a place at the home of English rugby for the first time in their 71-year history, and look a shoo-in for the Western Counties North title.

“It’s taken a lot of hard work and it certainly hasn’t been easy,” said Greer, a former Edinburgh contracted player who has also won 30-odd caps for Poland.

“The hardest thing was finding the motivation and inspiration to go back up – not just from within the club but from within the community as well.”

And that hard work has certainly paid off – the players have pretty much swept everything before them this season while the supporters have certainly bought into everything the club are doing.

“There was this this wonderful wall of sound when we played at Windsor in the last round of the Intermediate Cup,” said Greer. “Our supporters were amazing and it felt like we were playing at Coney Hill, not Windsor.

“They really helped to lift the players and certainly played their part in our win. We need more of that on Saturday.”

Coney Hill triumphed 34-19 a couple of weeks ago and a similar scoreline in their favour on Saturday will spark a massive party at the clubhouse in Metz Way, a party which is likely to spill out across all parts of Gloucester by the early hours of Sunday morning.

Not that Camberley will be pushovers. They clinched the London Two South West title on Saturday with a 35-29 win over nearest rivals Old Reigatian, and boast a playing record of 18 wins from 19 games in the league, with 17 of those wins producing a try bonus point.

“They’ve got a couple of Fijians in the backs who they try to get the ball to as often as they can,” Greer said.

“We like to run the ball as well but what we also bring is a lot of physicality. Games of rugby are still won up front and we’ve got to be dominant in the set-piece, which we usually are. We’ve won quite a few games through the set-piece this season.”

Greer will have a big part to play if Coney Hill are to secure front-foot possession, of course, and he should have plenty of power left in the legs even though the season is almost over.

That’s because he’s only been back playing a month and a half after sustaining a serious knee injury which kept him sidelined for a year.

“It’s great to be back playing,” admitted Greer, who these days lives in Longlevens and works as a bricklayer. “I enjoyed watching the boys play but there’s nothing like being out on the pitch with them.”

And he’s certainly fit enough for the big tests ahead because when he spoke to The Local Answer this week, he’d only just returned to this country after playing in an international against Portugal – he qualifies to play for Poland through his grandparents.

But while he may be a Scotsman playing for Poland, Gloucester has very much become his home now and he’s loving every minute of it.

“Yes,” he laughed, “I’m definitely an adopted Gloucester boy. I’ve been in the Shed to watch Gloucester and Gloucester is my home. I’m not going anywhere for a while.”

That’s great news for Coney Hill and their supporters. The only place they want Greer to go in the near future is London, and specifically Twickenham, on 6th May!