1st XV head North to face Percy Park RUFC, 2nd XV welcome Sheffield RUFC whilst the 3rds welcome Goole RUFC. The 4ths game was cancelled.
Driffield 1st XV make the trip North to face old foes Percy Park, looking to add to their league points and increase the gap to the relegation places. Achieving that position has to be the club’s no.1 priority at this moment, although we have 46 points and currently sit in 6th place, Bridlington are currently 3rd from bottom on 37, so 9 points is the difference at present. I would say we might need a couple more wins to ensure we are safe.
Percy Park will be looking for exactly the same. They are a few places lower than us at present in 10th place on 41 points. If PP were to win they could jump us in the league. Park’s league form is pretty simple reading : Win at home, Lose away, apart from the result 2 weeks ago when York became the 1st visiting team to win this season, taking the match 19-17. Apart from that they have won 8 and drawn 1. The draw came against Scarborough 23 all. They have beaten Morpeth 17 – 12, YMCA 29-24 and Bradford 31-18 to name a few. Their away form is not as good, conceding an average of 39 points per game. Last season Park just escaped the relegation places with their win at Bradford & Bingley. It was a re-arranged game, so it was played the weekend after the rest of the league finished. A 36 – 27 win at Bradford meant Park got 5 points, finishing on 49 points and Bradford also got a bonus point, meaning they too finished on 49 points, both teams jumping Dinnington and staying up by the 1 point.
Percy Park are currently on a 3-match losing run, having lost at West Leeds 31 -22, then at Home to York 17-19, followed by a 49 – 25 defeat at Pocklington last weekend.
Looking through the history books we have played each other 17 times so far. We first met in the 2005/06 season, North 2 East league. Both teams won their home games in style, Driffield winning 54 – 5, Park winning 45-8 in the reverse.
Out of the 17 matches played, Driffield have won 11, Park 6. Driffield have the edge in recent games too. The last time Park won a game between us was at home in 15/16 season when they won 30 – 25. Since then we have beaten them 5 times, twice away and three times at Kelleythorpe. Last year we had a great game at Percy Park, coming home after a 59 – 18 victory. In the game at Kelleythorpe this season we won 49 – 21. Driffield always had the lead, but couldn’t quite break away until the last 20 minutes. Match report here: https://driffieldrufc.com/2018/10/15/driffield-49-21-percy-park-saturday-13-october-2018/
Driffield will be needing to bounce back from last weekend;s match, a strange game which at one point looked as though it was going to beating. Morley scored with the 1st couple of minutes, followed by a collison in the midfield between two of Driffield’s backs, taking them both off the pitch with injuries – flanker Turner moved to the wing for the rest of the game. Add to that a yellow card to sub Morris a couple of minutes later, followed by a second try to Morley. All within 15 minutes at the most. At half time the score was 5 – 33. To end up 24 – 36 with the lads playing out of position all over the place was a solid effort. Match report here: https://driffieldrufc.com/2019/01/22/driffield-24-36-morley-saturday-19-january-2019/
More bad news with injuries : Furbank, Soanes and Rob Murray all picking up knocks, adding to the never-ending story of injured players this season. We have too many out injured to count at this moment. Better news with the returning players, Dervey and Dinsdale have both got over their man flu from last week, whilst Jackson returns from injury. Kelly and Farnsworth also come into the starting line up.
Driffield RUFC 1st team selection, v Percy Park (a), Sat 26/01/2019 2.15pm KO.
- Dervey
- Brumfield
- Blenkinsop
- Cooper
- Dinsdale
- Morris
- Mewburn R (c)
- Mewburn G
- Sowersby
- Watts
- Farnsworth
- Kelly
- Brankley
- Robinson
- Jackson
- Rowbottom M
- Turner
- Zavatti.
Both 2nd team and 3rd team are at home this Saturday, so plenty of rugby to watch there if you can’t get to Newcastle. The 2nd team face a test as they welcome Sheffield RUFC 2nd team, whilst the 3rd team also have a test as they look after Goole RUFC 2nd Team.
All KO 2.15
Good luck to all.