The end of a long and tough season comes into view as the 1st XV face yet another trip to Leicestershire to take on Loughborough Students. The team travel knowing they have secured National League 2 rugby for another season and buoyed up by yet another strong performance at Hinckley to follow the demolition of Chester the week before.

Loughborough Students, on the other hand, are in one of the relegation spots following Exeter University’s unexpected win at Hornets last week. The best they can hope for is a play-off position so they will be fighting hard this coming weekend and hoping Taunton help them out by beating Exeter U at home.

Normally at this stage of the season it is possible to have a pretty good idea of what next seasons National League 2 will look like in terms of teams. However, this year, due to the convoluted play-off system, the only certainties at this stage are that Camborne will go up and Leicester Lions will definitely come down to National 2 West while Clifton and Birmingham Moseley are battling it out to avoid the third relegation place and get the chance of a play-off . Devonport Services have been confirmed as champions of Regional 1 South West so will also be joining us next season

The rest will have to battle on into mid-May before they know their fate and we get a handle on what our travelling commitments are likely to be. It really is a shame that clubs who have put on a consistent performance all season to achieve a high league position, could now fall at the final hurdle due to just one poor performance, or an unlucky refereeing decision. As you can gather, I am not a fan of the play-off system.

Referee: Nathan Howarth. Assistant Referees: Joachim Abimelech - Leo Burton. 

Team news here on Friday