Preston Grasshoppers vs. Broadstreet – Kick Off 2.30pm
Touch Judges and Otley players wonder…..will it…..won’t it? But Lewis Allen’s conversion off Jack Ward’s try did!
Team News
Hoppers starting fifteen shows just the one change from last week at Otley with Danny Madden starting whilst Andy Irving moves to the replacements which includes Sam Whyte and Tom Hurst neither of who made the trip to Yorkshire. Coach Garth Dew said ‘we haven’t had to make too many changes this week after a strong performance at Otley. We really benefitted from having a massive presence on the bench to compliment a solid starting XV and we’re adopting a similar approach this week.’
He continued ‘A win makes all the difference and there has been a spring in everyone’s step this week at training. It’s vital that we turn up with the same attitude this weekend and show the Lightfoot Green faithful what we can do after a poor performance at home last time out.’
1 Danny Madden, 2 Brad Tuff, 3 Pete Altham, 4 Reece Tomlinson, 5 Ally Murray, 6, Will Lees, 7 Jack Walker, 8 Chris Taylor, 9 Sam Kindred, 10 Lloyd Davies, 11 Sam Kendall, 12 Jack Ward, 13 Phil Baines (Captain),14 Lewis Allen, 15 John Embleton.
Replacements:
16 Phil Mills, 17 Andy Irving, 18 Richard Morton 19 Sam Whyte, 20 Tom Hurst.
Preview
Preston Grasshoppers welcome new boys Broadstreet to Lightfoot Green this coming Saturday for what will be their third visit to Preston with their two previous visits proving fruitless.
Their first game against Hoppers was on the 19th of October 2002 when the home side ran out winners by thirty four points to twenty. On their second visit on the 6th of March 2010 the home side once again took the spoils winning twenty two points to seventeen.
Broadstreet gained promotion from Midlands 1 at the end of last season as Champions by a comfortable seventeen points and have started their third visit to National 2 in confident mood running Sedgley Park fairly close at Park Lane in their opening encounter and beating near neighbours Birmingham Solihull last Saturday with a Lazarus style comeback from a twenty six point deficit. This is something our visitors nearly achieved on their last visit, pulling back a twenty two point interval gap to finish just five points short with the home side scoreless in the second period.
Due to clubs shuffling fixture venues this will be our visitors third away fixture on the trot but as the last two weeks have shown, travelling away from their Coventry home doesn’t phase them and their confident start to the season bodes well for them to survive for more than the one season the other two visits to Level 4 lasted.
Hoppers on the other hand will be confident of building on the victory gained in Yorkshire last week, a big improvement on a nervous opening day at Lightfoot Green.
There have been just four meetings between the two clubs in the past with Hoppers winning two, our visitors one and a ten all draw being played out at Ivor Preece Field.
A look at the Hoppers squad which played in the last encounter between ourselves and Broadstreet shows not a single player out of the twenty still involved in playing first team rugby at Lightfoot Green. Although this game was just four years ago it isn’t really surprising with the current turn round of playing staff.
Our visitors squad sees just scrum half Nick Thatcher and prop Paul Hurst’s names appearing on the team-sheet back in 2010.
Skipper & Man of the Match Phil Baines weaves his way through the home defence setting up Jack Ward’s try
Photos by Mike Forshaw.
