Blues bid for basement battle boost
Bottom pair clash at Bridgwater with both teams looking to get off the mark
WITHOUT a win in 20 games this season, Newbury Blues and Bridgwater and Albion clash in Somerset on Saturday desperate to get off the mark.
The bottom two in Division Three South and West need a win to kick-start survival battles, which will need to push on with three clubs going down at the end of the season.
They were joined in the bottom three this week by Oxford Harlequins, despite their 45-19 win at Old Redcliffians. Harlequins were docked five points for fielding the ineligible Luke Brown against Bournemouth on the opening day of the season, and the RFU rejected an appeal that the player was properly registered and had joined them from Bideford two years ago.
But Harlequins remain seven points above the basement pair, who are 11 points behind the rest of the league.
"It's obvious what we have to do," said Blues' director of rugby Andy Widdop. "We need to get a win or face being cut off.
"We have got all of the bottom sides to play at home, but we need to get a couple of wins on the road as well, and if we can do that, the maybe it can give us the boost we need to pull off a couple of surprise results as well."
They face a Bridgwater club dealing with similar financial meltdown and forced to field untried teams of youngsters. The squad that lost 107-0 at Bournemouth last week had nine players under the age of 20.
Blues will be without their rugby director on Saturday. he and son Alistair are at a family wedding, and lock Tom Erskine is also a doubt after taking a blow against Redingensians last week. But prop Paul Hawkins, Ben Louisson, Josh Love, Tom Martin, Sean Chamunorwa and Jaco Meyer are all in the reckoning.