Bracknell

icBerkshire ~ Oct 20 2005

BRACKNELL coach Jamie Turner has described this Saturday's trip to North Walsham as, "our toughest fixture of the season."

The Lily Hill men face a daunting journey to Norfolk to face a table-topping North Walsham side who have won their opening four fixtures in National Division Three (south).

Bracknell, in contrast, have won just one of their opening four games and Turner knows his side will have to be at their very best to cope with the high-scoring league leaders.

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He said: "The long journey and the opposition make this our toughest fixture of the year as North Walsham are always there or thereabouts in this league.

"They lost to Esher in the cup last week but I won't read too much into that. They are a well-drilled, experienced unit who are scoring freely this season so we'll certainly have our work cut out.

"But we are an enthusiastic bunch who are also scoring tries and a couple of defeats won't get us down.

"We have to start well this week and we'll be working on that in training as it will be good to see us build an early lead rather than chase the game like we've done in the last couple of weeks."

Promising teenage winger Rob Frost looks set to keep his place for the trip to Walsham following an encouraging dis-play against London Scottish in the Powergen Trophy.

Wingers Ben Taylor (back) and Craig Fellowes (ham-string) both look set to be ruled out for this weekend's clash so 19-year-old Frost, who has come through the colts system at Bracknell and is currently studying at university in Kingston, is likely to retain his place.

Prop Dan Murphy should be fit to return after recovering from his broken hand but Sam Nowak (broken thumb) and Va'a Mulipola (shoulder) are both major doubts for the trip to East Anglia.

London Scottish..............49

Bracknell........................24

A BELATED second half fight-back wasn't enough to save Bracknell from defeat in the fourth round of the Powergen Trophy last weekend.

The London League Division outfit included former Bracknell players Josh Heke and Matt Johnston in their ranks but it was their pack which provided the plat-form for the victory.

Scottish took an early 14-5 lead with Rob Smart touching down for Bracknell, but the Exiles pulled away before half-time by running in three tries in quick succession.

They added a sixth try just after half-time to stretch their lead to an unassailable 42-5 but Bracknell then hit back to produce their best spell of the game with tries from Kemeli Vuadreu, Dave Budge and Greg Anstead.

New kicker Ben Nowak slotted two conversions to bring Bracknell back to 42-24 but Scottish had the final word when they claimed a late interception try to round off an ultimately comfortable victory.

"We played well for 20-30 minutes but we need to try and do that for 50-60 minutes," admitted coach Jamie Turner.

"We leaked four tries either side of half-time and although we had had a good spell after that and ran in three tries of our own, we've got to stop giving points away."