After recording Julie Driscoll's solo album "1969," Cregan joined the soft rock band Stud. The group featured Cregan, John Weider from Family, and also John Wilson and Richard McCracken, the rhythm section from Taste (best known as Rory Gallagher's pre-solo power trio). Stud dissolved when Cregan moved to Family in September 1972, after recording two albums which were released in Germany, where they had their largest audience. He joined Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman, replacing bassist John Wetton, adapting from rhythm guitar to bass guitar. He toured North America with the band, as the support act for Elton John, in the autumn of 1972. Family recorded two singles and a final album "It's Only a Movie" (1973). A tour of the UK in the autumn of the same year preceded the demise of the band. Cregan was then briefly reunited with Chapman and Whitney on Chapman Whitney Streetwalkers (1974).