After a strong start to our 125th season of rugby beating a strong looking Acklam side 52-23, we head down the road to Bishop Auckland. We expect it to be a real challenge after they only narrowly lost out to a Medicals side just a week ago scoring lots of points in the process, but after a solid week of training on Tuesday and Thursday, we go into the fixture full of confidence looking to take the full 5 points.

We welcome back some notable names to the team sheet this week after missing some players last week, the first of which being prop Tom Taylor who always brings his A game in a Novocastrians shirt. His presence alongside league debutant Ollie Forster at hooker will make for a strong front row this week to combat what we think will be a large Bishop Auckland pack, paired with the power of David Medjogbodo -Lawson we are certainly up for the challenge up front.

In the backs we also welcome the return of full back Sam Busby. Busby is always an electric player to watch when he takes the field and he will be looking to make the most of the space we can find on Saturday to set up some scorchers. Youngster Max Cook will also make his return to the team grabbing a place on the bench, hoping to use his pace that he displayed at the back end of last season to open up a tiring defence in the second half.

Darren Kelly, who had a brilliant 40 minutes last week off the bench scoring 2 tries in the process will earn a starting shirt tomorrow, packing down in the second row alongside Jonny Allton who also scored a double of his own last week as well!

So, after a solid outing a week ago, scoring a full 5 points and denying our opponents any bonus points last week. Continuing our try scoring momentum and getting 10 points under our belt by the end of week 2 is our main goal heading into this fixture, to get a winning streak underway early on in the season.

Do you have a spare few hours on your Saturday and want to come down and support? If so get yourself down to Bishop Auckland RUFC to watch the 1s or come down to Sutherland Park to cheer on the 2s for a 15:00 kick off. Come down and cheer on the lads, hope to see you there!

1st XV: Bishop Auckland (A)
Meet Time At Novos 12:30 for a 15:00 kick off
Tom Taylor, Ollie Forster, David Medjogbodo-Lawson, Darren Kelly, Jonny Allton, George Bambrick (C), Tom Westgarth, Rob Baldwin, Rhys Merlane, Josh Farley, Sam Cleife, Michael Searle, Harry Tankard, Lewis Chater, Sam Busby, Ant McQuillan, Fin Ruddock, Max Cook

2nd XV: Northern (H)
Meet Time At Novos 13:45 for a 15:00 kick off
Jack Bolam, Rich Zabrocki, Ian Wood, George Poole, Dylan Mills, Alex Cokeley (C), Sully Ismail, George Jowitt, Joe Kapur, Matthew Russell, Takreem Faheem, Brandon Gilbert, Greg Wills (VC) Max Mallon, Adam Lambert, Christian Selkirk, Lex Leonard, Rohan Cook, Joe Brown, Ben Wilkinson, Isaac Robinson, James Bass, Ben Hawkins, Arthur Wallis, Mark Hemmings, James Douglas, Dylan Parr