Playing Blackbrook is always a tight contest and it doesn't seem like two minutes ago since Poggy kicked a golden point penalty to send us through to the Division 2 Playoff Final in 2015 and subsequently ending in our promotion. Blackbrook managed to replicate that feat last year, similarly from 5th position. We have some games and recent history between the two sides, and we know it's always a competitive and tasty game.

It's been a couple of weeks since I last had to write my match programme column, and we were then 1 from 1. We're now 3 from 3, which is by far the best start to an NCL campaign that we've had. We had a bit of luck of the draw starting the campaign with four home games in the first five fixtures, and when the draw came out Knighty challenged us to go 5 from 5 at the commencement of the season. We are going along nicely at the moment to achieve that goal. We know that The Cross is usually a bit of a fortress for us, so we knew in preseason that we had a good chance of achieving Knighty’s and the side’s aim. The whole squad realises that home form is key if we want to go places in this division in 2017.

On the two games since I last wrote we've picked up hard fought wins over both York Acorn (10-6) and Milford Marlins (30-18). The latter victory came on the back of our best performance of the season by far, and the second half execution perhaps one of the best in my 100+ games for Underbank Rangers. We completed 16 out of 18 sets in the second half, which shows how well we can go if we stick to game plan, control possession and dominate the field territorially. A massive pat on the back to our forwards, every one of them killed it last week! As for the backs, it should be getting our first field session this week, which will be great as I think it'll massively help our cause.

We welcomed two new faces last week into the squad, with Chad and Joey, fresh from the Toronto Wolfpack training camp, making their debuts from the replacements bench. It's safe to say that they didn't look out of place and fitted in straight away. We also welcomed back a (not so new) face, in Andy Boothroyd in the unusual for him position of lock forward. Boothy always steadies the ship when he's on the field and leads us from the front, and hopefully he will recover from a few bumps and bruises to make another appearance again today - I know how much Blackbrook love him.

We know a win today could finally put us top of the division if other results go our way, and although only 4 games in it would put us in a really strong position.