FOUR Plymouth Albion players are to join Championship side Nottingham.

Centre Ben Woods, fly-half Lawrence Rayner, flanker Rob Langley and prop Tom Heard have all signed deals with Martin Haag’s side.

Nottingham are looking to fill gaps after announcing the departure of 12 players last week.

Haag said of the Albion quartet: “They are coming to show what they can do. They’ve all got pretty good experience of the Championship. They’ve got room for improvement which, as players, is what we like at this club. They are hungry.”

Woods said: “It was very appealing to join a club who are regularly pushing for the top four in the league.”

Woods, 24, and Langley, 23, have spent the past two seasons with Albion. Langley, who was on the books of Gloucester and Exeter, was the club’s official player of the year in 2013/14, while Irishman Woods started every match this term apart from Saturday’s final fixture against Doncaster.

Rayner and Heard both joined Albion last summer. Rayner, who arrived from Old Albanian, finished as the club’s second top points scorer in the Championship. Heard, 21, who joined from Gloucester, spent most of the season on the replacements’ bench – starting just two league matches and two cup games.

The quartet are the first of many who are likely to leave Brickfields following Albion’s relegation.

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