Blues tackle rampant Bulls

Third and fourth meet at Monks Lane with points the issue

NEWBURY BLUES face another of the form teams on Saturday when they entertain Banbury Bulls at Monks Lane in a clash between third and fourth in South West One East.

Seventeen points actually separate the teams, but Bulls are on a run of eight games unbeaten and need four or five to make inroads while Blues need the return to maintain the pressure on top pair Old Patesians and Maidenhead before league fixtures go into the stop-start period during the Six Nations period.

Banbury toppled Maidenhead last week and, said Blues head coach Lee Goodall: “They will be on a high. Their mindset is probably going to be ‘we’ve beaten the top of the table so we can quite easily beat third in the table,’ and why wouldn’t they think that?”

Several players return after missing last week's win at Windsor with Alex Millar, George Robinson-Slater, Josh Winfield and Graham Stewart all back in the reckoning.