After suffering their first home defeat of the season last week end, Wheatley sit 4th in the Wadworth 6X BBO Premier with 3 wins and 3 losses, 6 points and 2 places above their opponents. Tadley finished 9th in the league last year, and have had a mixed start to the season with 2 wins in the form of a walkover and a 34-5 victory to Hungerford, two losses to Didcot (31-21) and Slough (57-17) and a 18 all draw against Milton Keynes. With no fixture last weekend, Wheatley will be presented with a fully rested and recovered Tadley.

For the first time this season, Wheatley will name an unchanged squad from the previous week. Captain Alex Acklam will once again lead the team out alongside Peter Mitchell and possibly Alex Gabbidon, with the slack selection confirmation, it’s hard to be sure. Jack Atkinson continues to love life in the second row whilst his partner Matt Gibb can skip Arm day this week after the workout that is lifting Atkinson (Only Joking. Gibb wouldn’t skip Arm day). Due to a flower arranging competition or something, Fraser Petterson moves to the bench to be replaced by Shrek’s nemesis Caillin Taylor in the only change to the starting line up. James Neal starts at 8, full of rage at being missed out for player of the month, whilst the loosest of loose forwards, Daniel Bland again starts at 6.

In the backs, Jack Taylor starts and so gets another 2 points for his fantasy stats whilst Aaron Laman will run everything knowing he is 19 points from 100. His mother and Father’s pride, Joe Hobdell, starts at 12 with Iain Downer coming back in at 13. Dan Rule starts at 11 whilst Birthday Boy and man of the match/dick of the day Joe Taylor will have 80 minutes to contemplate what will happen to him on the way back. As always, Jordan hook rounds up the team at 15, providing he’s found his way back to Wheatley after being launched into Waterperry by a Slough player last week.

Joining Fraser on the bench is head Wizard and song leader Simon Chadbone and the bullocking Ezra Rees.

Long away days are always fun, but they are 10x the fun when you return with a win, and with all 18 players still reeling from last week’s defeat, they’ll be eager to make sure that’s the case.