GOOD question. Sunday’s game at the Vestacare Stadium, our penultimate home game of the season, certainly has a lot riding on it.
Back in May, on a Friday night we’d like to forget, the men from North London caned us 38-16 to pick up their first win of the season.
Since then, they’ve won another four out of nine, so the lessons they handed out that night were definitely the catalyst for better things.
They come here too on the back of two big wins, admittedly against the bottom two in the division, but 46-6 (v Cornwall) and 68-18 (v West Wales Raiders) nevertheless.
At their place, they relied heavily on big, strong, fast forwards who smashed us up the middle, but who also used the skill and expertise of clever scrum-half Phil Lyon to organise them as a unit.
They’ve also got one of the Thornham lads from the North-East - Neil this one – to do a similar job at hooker. And their spine is completed by maverick full-back Jarred Bassett, who scored FOUR tries against Cornwall and then another FOUR against West Wales only a week later.
No matter what the quality of the opposition, eight tries in two consecutive games takes some doing. So what do we know about this 30-year-old Aussie, who has settled in London and who made his name with Wests Warriors in the Southern Conference ?
“He has the ability to be a stand-out player in League One,”
said Skolars boss Joe Mbu.
Last year he was named Southern Conference player of the year and also included in a media list of the most promising 13 players in the grassroots game.
Bassett was in top company alongside players like Bailey Hodgson of Castleford Tigers under-18s, Gav Rodden, then of Wigan St Jude’s, now of North Wales Crusaders and Logan Astley of Wigan Warriors under-18s and now on loan with us.
He’s on fire for Skolars behind a big, mobile pack that includes forwards who are on long-term loan deals from London Broncos, such as Judd Greenhalgh, his brother Mike and Lameck Juma, all of whom have extended their stays with Skolars until the end of the season.
Said Mbu:
“Judd adds size and aggression to our pack and he has benefited from training with the Broncos championship squad.”
It promises to be an intriguing head to head and one we must win in order to retain our 100 per cent record in all home games against Skolars, spanning 11 games.
