The firsts have had an excellent pre-season beating Westoe, Blaydon in the Cup and Horden in the Bob Bateman memorial game. There've been plenty of tries and some free flowing rugby with a very stable set-piece.
On the downside we lost several key players to injury last week. Forwards Ian Pinchen and Owen Bennett had to leave the field early in the game and neither will figure at Northern. "Pinhead" says he is now fighting fit, but he was concussed and the coaches and physio aren't prepared to take any risks.
Owen Bennett was carried off with a knee injury, and is recovering well, but won't be fit this week, and neither will Tom Armstrong who left the field with his shoulder in a sling. However, fellow winger Scott Butcher has recovered from his knock.
Skipper Danny Boatman moves up to the second row with the versatile Chris Atkins earning a place on the back row thanks to his hard work during the summer. Ross Wood will be in the front row alongside Rollins and Coates.
In the backs Liam Bailey's conversion from hooker continues. He'll be at inside centre alongside Andrew Cheslin who has been on top form in the warm-up games.
It is a young team which is growing together and developing a real team spirit. The pre-season performances have been very encouraging but now that the real rugby starts the only thing which is certain is that we will play better than we did the last time we were at Northern. That was the last game of our promotion winning season and we just didn't turn up.
Northern: 15. Rory Gibson, 14 Graham Jardine, 13 Alex Clark, 12 Spike Strang, 11 Dom Fawcett,10 Patrick Harper, 9 David Kay, 1 Oliver Holtam, 2 Sam Wilson, 3 Jon Bonner, 4 Kieran Dannatt, 5 Andrew Scott,6 Barry Blackburn 7 Pat Power, 8 Thom McCullough. Reps: Larne Jones, Alan Douglas, Sam Thorne
West: 15 Luke Mallinson 14 Scott Butcher 13 Andrew Cheslin 12 Liam Bailey 11 Peter Youll 10 Stuart Waites 9 Ryan Painter 1 Ross Wood 2 Andrew Rollins 3 Adam Coates 4 Michael Hogan 5 Dan Boatman [c] 6 Chris Atkins 7 Jon Boatman 8 Sam Miller 16 Andrew Dixon [FR] 17 Jay Corbett 18 Greg Edwards