FOR the first time this season Cameron Setter’s name will not be on an Albion match-day team-sheet.
The 22-year-old scrum-half has either started or been on the bench for all of Plymouth’s 26 league games to date.
But he is forced to sit out Saturday’s game against Wharfedale due an ankle injury he picked up just 15 minutes into Albion’s 52-13 defeat at Ampthill.
Albion were winning when Setter went down making a tackle. The video replays did not make good viewing, but fortunately the Plymouth-born back’s injury is not as bad as it looked.
“It did not look the best,” admitted Setter. “But I think it’s just a ligament strain. Luckily nothing’s fractured or anything like that, but there’s a bit of bruising. Once the bruising’s gone hopefully it will heal a bit quicker.”
He added: “It is a bit frustration to miss this game, but I’ll come back in next week and see how it goes.”
Setter has been among a core of players that have been regulars this season.
Albion have had 14 players feature in at least 22 of their 26 games so far.
“I think that has helped massively getting links between players, like me and Billy (Searle) or Billy and Marc (Koteczky),” said Setter. “It has definitely helped us this season.”
Setter has played nearly 19 hours of league rugby this year, compared to just four last season.
“I didn’t play masses last season,” he said. “But I came into this season just trying to work as hard as I could. I probably got a little bit complacent at the start of the season thinking I was the only nine from last year. And at the start I was swapping and changing with Shep (Matt Shepherd) but I think that pushed us.
“It took us as a team a bit of time to settle but once we did settle we have lost two games in 15.”
One of those defeats was last week’s horror show at Ampthill.
“That was tough,” said Setter. “It was a mixture of us having an off-day and them being really up for it. To be fair to them they played pretty well and to their strengths.
“We started off really well but then a few things went wrong and once that happens and you get behind by two scores, heads can go down. But, fair play to the boys, especially at the end to come back and score two tries. We played some pretty good rugby at the end.”
Meanwhile, Seti Raumakita has been cited by Blackheath for two incidents in Albion’s 20-19 win last month.
Albion have opted to suspend for one game pending an RFU hearing on Tuesday night.
However, it does leave Plymouth short of backs for the Wharfedale game, with Setter, Jake Murphy, Elliot Bale and Ethan Ford also unavailable. Jon Dawe, who has only made one appearance for Albion this season, will be the only back on the bench on Saturday.