Youth seems to be the theme of this week's lineup as it dominates most of the names on the team sheet, a brilliant opportunity for lots of players to stake their claim for a shirt as the start of the season stands only one week away.

The front row see's a complete change from the 3 men who started against Gateshead a week ago due to injury and unavailability. 1st XV regular Tom Taylor will return this week and youngster David Medjigbodo-Lawson will pack down alongside him. Making his first XV debut Ollie Forster will play in the middle at hooker after a last minute change moves him from the back row.

Replacing him at 7 will be Tom Westgarth, another youngster who made his debut only a week ago. Joining him in the back row will be another debutant, Rob Baldwin. Rob has already thrown on a Novocastrians shirt earlier this year at numerous sevens events and was dangerous every time he touched the ball. After joining us from Westoe we are really excited to see how he gets on tomorrow against what will be some good opposition.

The backs continue the theme of youth, Rhys Merlane comes back from holiday to reclaim his starting shirt at scrum half, and recent colts graduate Josh Farley gets the nod from the coaches at fullback, as his passing and kicking game can really help us open up what we expect to be a well organised and hard hitting Consett defence.

Harry Tankard will also make an appearance for the first time before the start of the season in the outside centre channel, Tankard had a brief spell at 13 last season and was just as electric as when he plays in the back three.

As for the bench, we have a whole host of debuts to celebrate, Ben Stocken, Richard McNeill and Max Holland are all set to make their 1st XV debuts on Saturday after impressing last Saturday and throughout training.
Four others are going to make their senior debuts for the club from the bench as well, Eddy Mason, George Jowitt, Owen Blackburn and Ollie Harris and it will be really exciting to see just how well they get on and perform against what we expect to be a real challenge put down by the travelling side tomorrow.

So get yourself down to watch if you can spare the time! Kick off is at 15:00 and we hope to see everyone there!

In other news, the 125 club membership is now open to be purchased! And should you purchase your membership before the 6th September, not only will you receive a copy of your very own History Of Novos book, your name will also be published in the book upon its release, so hurry and get your membership now before this offer disappears!

Meet time 13:45
Kick Off 15:00
1st XV Vs Consett - David Medjigbodo-Lawson, Ollie Forster, Tom Taylor, Theo Mouille, Jonny Allton, George Bambrick, Tom Westgarth, Rob Baldwin, Rhys Merlane, Lewis Chater, Sam Cleife, Sam Bird, Harry Tankard, Adam Lambert, Josh Farley, Ben Stocken, Vinny Baker, Richard McNeill, Eddy Mason, George Jowitt, Alex Cokeley, Owen Blackburn, Ollie Harris, Matthew Russell, Max Holland