CAN THE WARRIORS BOUNCE BACK AT DERBY?
Gloucestershire Warriors look to get their Co-operative Rugby League Conference campaign back on track with a visit to Derby City this Saturday (2.30pm).
After last week’s defeat by Bristol Sonics, the Warriors camp is looking for a positive response and a win at Derby would be just the tonic. The Warriors, however, face a side that came from 22-8 down to defeat Coventry Bears 34-22 in Coventry last week and know they will be in for a hard battle.
City are traditionally strong at home and, having secured the win last week that keeps them well up in the hunt for the play-off places, will be confident of seeing off the Warriors this weekend. But the Warriors are unbeaten away from home this season and will be looking to maintain that record.
"We were very disappointed with the game last week against Bristol", said Warriors chairman Chris Wilson. "But that’s behind us now and we are concentrating our efforts on beating Derby this weekend".
The Warriors have yet to beat City in Derby though they have recorded comfortable wins over them at home in each of the last two seasons. "Derby are a well-organised side with some good players. It will be a tough test for us and if we can take a strong side, then I think we can overcome them," added Wilson.
Last year, City won an end-to-end thriller 43-32 and the Warriors will hope to get back to the form that took them to the top of the Midlands Premier division. "Our defence has been good up until last weekend, so that is an area to work on while we need to play more as a team and where necessary play basic, even boring rugby league to get control of games".
There are plenty of lessons to take from last week’s game where everything went spectacularly wrong for the Warriors and if they apply them well and travel in strength then they should be capable of taking the points.
The Warriors remain level at the top thanks to some favourable results last weekend. Birmingham Bulldogs head the standings after their 16-12 win over Leicester Phoenix who now drop to third place, a point behind the Warriors and the Bulldogs.
Below these three, there is little between the next three teams with the Sonics moving into fourth place after their demolition of the Warriors and Derby drawing level with Coventry after their win at Old Coventrians.
Telford Raiders moved off the bottom of the table with a comfortable 32-6 win over fellow strugglers Redditch Ravens.
This weekend’s other fixtures see the Bulldogs travel to Telford for what could be a tough battle as the Raiders look to have found some form over the last couple of weeks. Meanwhile Leicester's new Head Coach Ty Watson welcomes his old side Coventry Bears to Phoenix Park looking to get back into the winners circle following last weekend's loss to Birmingham. Redditch make the trip to Bristol to face the Sonics who will be gunning for their third consecutive win.
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Chris Wilson
Media Manager, Gloucestershire Warriors RLFC
Tel: +44 (0)1684 850903
Mobile: + 44 (0)7905 931033
Email: gloswarriors2004@aol.com
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The Gloucestershire Rugby League is an organisation for local rugby league clubs in Gloucestershire. Our main activity currently is to promote rugby league through the County and give useful information about our sport to the public of Gloucestershire.
