Saturday the first team head to Barnard Castle looking for their third win in a row after defeating Acklam and Gateshead so far in November. Barnard Castle are yet to win a match and will have targeted this home game against 8th placed opposition. However, we feel our star is on the rise and we are heading back toward the top six where he will hope to remain over the rest of the season.

The squad looks stronger each week at the moment and this trend continues as Sean Ramsay play his first game of the season for our group after a return from long term injury. In addition, Sam Bird and Jack Hearn come back into the starting back line after being unavailable last week. Finally, squad improvement is rounded of as regular starter George Bambrick is off the bench after being away last Saturday.

1st xv to play Barnard Castle - 1145 meet, 1415 kick off - Andy Hall, Daniel Shuttleworth, Pete Twentyman (Captain) Tom Cox, Ross Radford, Darren Kelly, Sean Ramsay, Alex Littlefair, Christian Selkirk, Sam Devey, Sam Bird, Jez Nash (V.Captain) Jack Hearn, Eoghan Phillips, Shaun Stewart, Luke Menzfeld, George Bambrick and Pat Smith.

Saturday is a huge game for the group against a side we have struggled with in recent seasons. Whilst we won the last fixture 50-5 in January the four previous fixtures went the way of our hosts. The boys will be desperate to rectify those figures and not let Barnard Castle grow in confidence in the early exchanges. We will need to repeat our emotion and energy that was on display last Saturday against Gateshead when we dominated the first half.

There is really good competition in the squad at the moment which is driving standards in recent training sessions and matches. Evidence is provided in this regard as Tom Dias, Josh Stacey, Kit Sorenson, Alex Cleminson, Lewis Chater, Rich Harrison, Ben Wollerton and Isaac Robinson are excluded due to unavailability. In addition, players of the calibre of Adam MacDonald, Paddy Sowter, Ben Kelly - all regular first team squad players have been selected for the two's this week.

Our two's have an incredibly difficult fixture at Billingham in a game that will start with uncontested scrums due to unavailability. However, there are nine lads with first team experience alongside several young prospects for the future.

2nd xv at Billingham - Ian Pratt (captain) Richard Anderson, George Preston, Adam MacDonald, Cam Carmichael, Gus Nye, Louis Matthews, Josh McFarland, Paddy Sowter, Nick Bellamy, Ben Kelly, Dylan Murphy, Fraser Green, Ben Forbes, James Bass, Iain Kane, Alexander Horne, Justin Taylor and David Bowman.

The 3's have been on a great run of late under the stewardship of Jack Pellew. Their winning run came to an end at Durham last week but they will hopeful of a victory on Saturday against Tynedale 3's. Great to see that Jack has got Mike, Andy and Ben back into regular rugby. Very beneficial for the uni lads and our colts coming through to have these characters around them to pass on knowledge. Great to see Scott Leggetter and Oli Taylor progressing from our colts into senior rugby.

3rd xv vs Tynedale - 1415 at home - Jeff Burke, Michael Stowe, John Watson, Andy Gardiner, James Coles, Josh Kaufmann, Rich Zabrocki, Ben Silk, Jonno Martin, Jack Pellew (captain) Nick Moss, Ben Melrose, Dan Stalmeister, Bradley Pantrey, Jonny Winterhalder, Paul Sanderson, Ian Wood, Scott Leggetter, Oli Taylor, Hayden Williamson, Jonny Lowes, Charlie Hay, Jamie Malone

Up the Vos !