Coach Brown's team selection looks very positive from a Black Red point of view with the return of Dickie Miller and Mark Watsonfor a tough test against 2nd placed Northern.

Northern travel to Bower Park with genuine promotion prospects. They have only lost one game todate but crucially this was against their most obvious rivals - Middlesbrough. Since that defeat they have handed out defeats to the current bottom 3 sides. Hopefully, after today it will not be the bottom 4 sides. But to be serious it is only against sides such as Northern that you can measure your progress and the lads in Black and Red will be up for this one.

In the past two seasons, Northern have made strong challenges to move up to Level 5 but failed. They came close last time losing out to Percy Park and the season before it was a 3rd place finish. They will be hoping to go one better come April.

Despite the relative league positions you can guarantee that there will be no complacency in the Northern camp. The reason for this is Aspatria’s unexpected but deserved 24:10 defeat of Northern last season. A result that despite being early in the season arguably cost the North East side promotion.

TEAM

15 Guy Reed
14 Alex Barton
13 Kai Gilhespie
12 Ryan Scott
11 Grant Bethwaite
10 Ed Gate
9 Jack Clegg
1 Arran Sullivan
2 Adam Cavangh
3 Jack Gaskell [c]
4 Richard Miller
5 Riley Thwaites
6 Regan Tinnion
7 Owen Blackburn
8 Jamie Lightfoot

SUBS

16 James Hunter
17 Jude Wilkinson
18 Mark Watson