Wharfedale unchanged at Albanians (From Craven Herald)

Wharfedale unchanged at Albanians

2:41pm Thursday 4th October 2012 in Wharfedale

Wharfedale are on the road again on Saturday to visit a third new venue in four away matches.

This time it is to Old Albanians, champions of last season’s National Two South.

The Hertfordshire club have some seasoned campaigners in their side and are led by wily ex-Cambridge fly-half James Shanahan.

They are making a decent fist of their first-ever season in National One, lying in 12th position on 12 points, three behind Wharfedale.

Their best performance so far has been the 26-20 win at Fylde, although they will also take satisfaction from scoring ten tries in their two defeats to Blackheath and Esher.

That may be revealing as scoring tries seems to be no problem to the newcomers, it’s stopping their opponents which seems to be the difficulty.

They have scored 21 tries in their five matches but have conceded 28, against Wharfedale’s tally of 13 for and 14 against.

After last Saturday’s encouraging performance at Loughborough, the Wharfedale selectors keep the same starting line-up.

The only changes are on the bench, where Jim Mason and Philip Woodhead, making their first appearances of the season.

Theyreplace Chris Howick and Will Bell, who will get some much-needed match time with the Foresters.

Wharfedale: Tom Davidson; Nick Taylor, Joe Donkin, Andy Hodgson, Simon Horsfall; Luke Gray, James Gough; Chris Steel (capt), Ian Larkin, Mark Tampin, Richard Brown, Richard Rhodes, Alastair Allen, James Tyson, Aaron Myers. Replacements: Steve Graham, Adam Howard, Jim Mason, Lloyd Davies, Philip Woodhead.