CAPTAIN Jake Murphy insists Plymouth Albion will not be taking struggling Henley Hawks lightly today when the sides meet at Brickfields in National One (3pm).
Albion sit fourth in the table after 10 wins in their last 11 outings, while Henley lie second-from-bottom with just five victories to their name all season.
But fellow strugglers Cinderford and Blaydon have made Graham Dawe’s side work hard for wins in their last two matches and Murphy expects the same again this week with Henley fighting hard to stay in the division.
“It is going to be another testing week,” said Murphy. “We were pleased to come away with five points last weekend against Cinderford, but this game is going to be another huge task.
“We’ve been working hard this week and looking at ways we can tinker with what we did last weekend because that was not all perfect.
“But it is always a bonus to be playing at Brickfields in front our home support.”
Albion beat Henley 36-3 away at the start of November. That is their biggest win of the season and came courtesy of five first half tries.
“That first half performance up there was fantastic,” said Murphy. “Our forwards were outstanding and Marc (Koteczky), Billy (Searle), Ethan (Ford) and Putty (Tom Putt), well everyone was fantastic, and when we got chances we put some scores on the board.
“But I remember in the second half, we only had a penalty, so that shows they (Henley) are a good team. We are not going to take them lightly by any means.
“We’ll show them the respect they deserve and we’ll go out and stick to our game-plan.”
He added: “We are hoping for some nice weather but as we have shown in the last five or six weeks we are more than capable of rolling our sleeves up and getting stuck in if it’s a bit muddy.”
Albion have had 16 different try scorers this year, with six players, including Murphy, having scored six or more.
“There seems to be quite a nice spread of scorers, which is really pleasing,” said the Albion skipper. “There’s boys with good numbers all over the place. It shows there is no reliance on one single person to get all our points for us.
“There’s an ethos in the team that it is not about who scores the tries just as long as we do. As long as we keep the scoreboard ticking along we don’t mind who’s scoring.”