Scorpions ready to help create history

The South Wales Scorpions are preparing for a historic clash with Oxford in the Kingstone Press Championship this Saturday.

The match will be the new club’s first home game as a professional side and the first rugby league match at the famous Iffley Road stadium.

The name may not ring too many bells at first, but the running track present at the venue was the very same which saw Sir Roger Bannister run the world’s first ever four minute mile 59 years ago.

Now it is embarking on a new adventure with rugby league taking to its turf, and Scorpions coach Dave Clark will have a stronger squad to select from than he has in previous weeks for this historic occasion.

Jack Pring returns from injury, while James Tutuila has now served his two-match suspension and will return. Rhodri Lloyd has also served a one-match suspension, while Clark could also see his dual registration Wigan Warriors stars return after most of them were declared unavailable for the last two weeks.

“It’s good that we will have a larger selection of players to select from this week as Oxford will be a tough game,” he said. “They’ve had a good start to the season. They beat Gloucester and did okay against Halifax last week too.

“They’ve got some attacking ability and they’ll [ask] a lot of questions of us defensively. We need to make sure that we’re up to the job as they’ll be wanting two wins out of two to start their league season well.

“They’ve [got] a lot of players from Oldham with plenty of Championship 1 experience, so it’ll be a tough challenge for us. But we’re moving forward all the time and despite defeats in the last couple of weeks, the confidence is growing in the squad and we’re getting better week by week.”

Before that on Friday, the Scorpions’ under-20s take on Salford City Reds at Tredegar RFC.

The youngsters are looking for their first win of the season and will be confident of giving Salford a good game after competing well against them last month. They lost that encounter 40-22, but it wasn’t without giving the Super League side a run for their money, and the Scorpions were only eight points adrift going into the final 10 minutes before falling away.