North Wales Crusaders coach Clive Griffiths has said that he won’t be overplaying the Welsh derby against South Wales Scorpions at The Gnoll in Neath on Sunday (kick-off 3pm) to his players.
The experienced former Wales international coach has said that his squad will be treating it as any other normal game despite the nation’s Rugby League bragging rights for 2013 being at stake.
“It’s just another game for us,” he said. “It’s fantastic to have North Wales v South Wales going head to head again in a competitive environment and it’s great for the fans to get behind their ‘region’ but I don’t want to overplay it.
“We’re both building for next season and we will do the best we can. Next year, both of us will be hell-bent on getting out of this league and into the Championship. We’re looking at the players we have and how we’re going to do that in regards to recruitment for next year. I’m sure Dave Clark at the Scorpions is doing exactly the same thing.
“Right now, we’re playing teams who are at a similar level as us in the league. We know that South Wales Scorpions can play well so we’re on our guard. Us, Scorpions, London and Gateshead are all in a bit of a mini-league now to get at least seventh place. We’re going into every game believing we can win and that’s how far we’ve come. The Scorpions will be looking at us as a winnable game to take them up the table and they’ll want to jump over us by the end of the season.
“If we put a couple of back to back wins together and Oldham slip up then who knows, we could sneak into sixth. The top four is just that bit beyond us now and I don’t think we’re ready for promotion yet. It’ll be a massive upheaval. Going forward to the future though, the players have got so much to play for.”
Griffiths, pleased at how the season has gone, says that the club’s biggest asset has been their fans, who will almost certainly follow the club in droves in their pilgrimage to the south this Sunday.
“I’m amazed at the support we have and I want to go public on this - I want to give the fans a massive pat on the back,” he said. “There’s a great rapport between players and fans, we’ve been attending events with the supporters, and win lose or draw they’re 100% behind you.
“We took hundreds to Rochdale the week before last and I think we’ll have hundreds coming down to South Wales too. It was like a home game in Gateshead the week before that as we outnumbered their fans! There might as well be thousands the way they get behind the team, even in the bad times. They gave us a standing ovation even though we lost. I expect them to be at The Gnoll as that’s how they are.”
Tickets for the big Welsh derby - South Wales Scorpions v North Wales Crusaders on Sunday 5th August - are now on sale. They can be bought by going to www.scorpionsrl.com or in person from the Neath RFC club shop in Old Market Street, Neath on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week.
0 comments:
Post a Comment