Preston Grasshoppers vs. South Leicester
This Saturday Preston Grasshoppers welcome South Leicester to Lightfoot Green for their third visit to our ground and the first time to play on the AGP.
Hoppers go into the game looking to make it ‘three-on-the-trot’ after securing their first win on the road last week at Stourbridge, and in so doing back to back wins for the first time this season.
It was an excellent spectacle for the Hoppers faithful who had travelled to the Midlands with confidence after the previous week’s successful dismantling of the League’s leaders.
Our visitors this week are finding things tough in this their fourth season of National 2 North rugby and currently lie third from bottom of the league in one of the relegation positions. After starting the season with three wins and a draw from their first five outings things haven’t gone too well, with just one victory to report from the last nine games. Similar to Hoppers, our visitors have just one win on the road, that being at local rivals Leicester Lions in the second game of the season.
After battering away at the door for a number of seasons ‘South’ eventually gained promotion into National 2 North for the start of the 2015/16 season. Their promotion season saw them losing just once before finishing as Champions by some considerable margin over Hinckley who eventually gained promotion for the following season after they had lost in the play-off to Sandal.
Preston Grasshoppers record against South Leicester shows our visitors having won three of the four encounters with a twenty points all draw at Lightfoot Green being Hoppers best effort. Needless to say the home side have something to prove this Saturday!
Milestones
Congratulations this week go to Nathan Pope in making his 1st XV debut off the bench in last weeks victory at Stourbridge and Matt Crow on scoring his first try for the Hoppers first team. Tyler Spence also reached a significant milestone last Saturday, scoring his tenth try in spectacular fashion and in doing so notching up fifty points!
Team News
Hoppers select a similar side to the one which travelled to Stourbridge with one change in the forwards and one in the backs. Adam Howard comes in to replace Jack Edwards in the pack and James Fitzpatrick replaces the suspended Sam Stott in the centre.
1. Oga Mabaya
2. PJ Millea (C)
3. Peter Altham
4. Luke Procter
5. Chris Roddy
6. Adam Howard
7. Alastair Murray
8. Matthew Lamprey
9. James Gough
10. Thomas Davidson
11. Conor Trueman
12. James Fitzpatrick
13. Matt Crow
14. Tyler Spence
15. Brad Cave
16. Noah Miller
17. Oliver Trippier
18. Jack Edwards
19. Jake Squirrell
20. Alex Ward
