Thursday, 9 August 2012
Look Out, Boyo - Here Come South Wales Scorpions
Something different this week, in that our match preview comes to you from sunny Amsterdam!
So, whilst I avoid being offered bizzare sexual acts from 18 stone Latvian women, South Wales Scorpions coach Dave Clark remains a chipper chap after Sunday's 36-24 defeat in the Welsh derby against North Wales Crusaders. "I took a lot of positives out of the game," he said - which nicely balances the wheelbarrowful of negatives we took away from London Skolars.
He singled out Irish prop Tom McKeown for praise, alongside former Welsh Student player Thomas Morgan. Clark has also blooded a raft of youngsters including 18 year-olds Alex Jones, Luke Kell and Osian Phillips.
But the defeat looks likely to condemn the Scorpions to a 9th place finish, so Clark will be using the last few games to help prepare for 2013.
On this Sunday's game, he said: "It will be a tough trip for us as Rochdale are still looking to get into the play-offs and they'll want to bounce back after losing at London Skolars last week. They're a bit up and down this year, but I watched their game against Crusaders and they dominated that from start to finish.
"They play very well at home and it'll be a big challenge for us. We'll have to be at our best to get a result."
As for Hornets, we need a win to wash away the ghastly aftertaste of last week's awful defeat.
Other than Dale Bloomfield, who took a knock to the knee, there are likely to be a few other changes to this week's squad - mostly due to performance rather than injury.
Stanky said: "I was bitterly disappointed with some of the lads' performances last week. I got the sense some of them have made their minds up that we're not going to get promoted and that they didn't put in 100 per cent. That's just not good enough… there have got to be changes, because we can't allow performances like that.
"There's plenty to play for in terms of contracts for next year, and we want to finish the season on a high.
We've got a tough game on Sunday, and two more after that against Barrow and Workington, but there are no excuses."