Back on the road!

Sedgie are back on the road again after losing out on our rare home fixture last week, Storm Arwen accounting for most fixtures but Guisbrough managed to make the furthest trek of anyone in playing at Ashington. Frustrating with us being pretty much on our travels all season so far but I guess its just one of those things.

Off to Gateshead we go for round 11 (Should be Round 12) for our 8th away game. Gateshead were my favourites to go straight back up but having lost 4 games out of ten, A surprising loss at Whitby, but Guisbrough, Hartlepool and Ashington have all edged them out as well. Certainly a tough test for us.

Our season still sees us stuck on just the one win, but we feel we could have had more out of some of the games, whilst a challenge against a side who have regularly been in DN1, we have a strong squad capable of upsetting a few teams if we play to our potential.

Incidentally, This is a homecoming for chairman Ged, a player for the old North Durham club before they merged with Gateshead Fell and he spent a bit of time there in his playing days... its also the scene of the time Coach Addy played 9 back in his Novos days... the ten retired a few days after!

Team News

No Mitch Corney this week as he is off to Edinburgh, Both King brothers are also not available as is James Allison, Tom Flatters and Andy Shepherd, Terry Cook and Bobby Blackburn.

However, we are seeing some lads coming back to fitness and it was positive to see Nathan Murray at training again after his knee injury. Its still a challenge getting lads available and we are gutted that we have had to cry off our saxons fixture which means 6 of our lads who want to play not getting a game.

Our Squad is bolstered by some returnees from injury and unavailability and we can only hope the same 18 are able to take the field Saturday!

Graham Brennan remains at prop alongside Dan Lawson who comes into start, James Watson captains the side from hooker. Pedro Gray is joined in the 2nd Row by Charlie Johnson and elder brother Will johnson is at Blindside, Dom Ryan (TS) will be hoping to continue his strong form of late at 7 and Massimo Impagliazzo returns at number 8.

The backs see our swiss army problem solver Gaz Pratt come into number 9 after playing every other backs position this season to complete the full set! Chris Dawson returns from injury to take the number 10 jersey. Out wide Andy Fife and the returning Adam Grieve are on the wings offering a pacy threat and in the middle of the park, John Pope and Lawrence Oliver are our centre pairing. Owen Robinson has sufficiently recovered from last weeks night out to take his place at full back.

Our finishers are pretty strong with both Seb Wilkins and Tom Ducker returning from injury whilst Phil Greenbank covers our backs options.

Hopefully, no more storms or issues and we can see a good game of rugby on Saturday, would be great to see one of those gritty Sedgie performances where we shock everyone and come away with a win!