AFTER having their club match with Doncaster at Cross Green last Saturday called off by the south Yorkshire club Otley have been preparing for their important match on Saturday with Bracknell.
The team in mid-table in Jewson League Division One stand between Otley and the title. Otley have already secured promotion to Allied Dunbar Two but are now looking for the icing on the cake with the championship itself.
Otley would love to see a big crowd down at Cross Green to acclaim the side which is moving up into the top 24 teams in the country. They need a good crowd to shout them to victory.
If Otley win then they should be champions no matter what Birmingham and Solihull, their nearest rivals do unless, of course, they run in a massive amount of points in their last three matches.
But then Otley will have to lose their last match at Blackheath. On paper this should not be a problem as they defeated Blackheath 103-3 in December and the southern side has not really improved much since then.
Otley have at present a better points difference of 73.
Otley's fly-half Dan Clappison is at present second in the leading points scorers in Jewson League One with 245 points The leader is Wharfedale's left-winger Adam Mounsey.
Otley left-winger Mark Kirkby has 95 points to his credit from 19 tries while Lafaele Filipo, the Otley flanker, has 70 points from 14 tries.
Mark Kirkby tops the Jewson One try scoring list with 19 tries and Andy Hodgson (Wharfedale) is a close second with 15 tries. Filipo is joint third with Ian Bruce of Preston Grasshoppers with 14 tries. Mark Farrar (Harrogate) a former Otley scrum-half has 11 tries and is in sixth position.
Otley's right-winger Simon Smith has nine tries to his credit and flanker Russ Buckroyd (Wharfedale) has helped himself to seven tries this season.
Saturday's game with Bracknell kicks-off at 3 pm and Otley have selected - R Duckett; S Smith, M Billington, R Whatmuff, M Kirkby; D Clappison, A Brown; D Hall, R Lamb, S Rice, I Carroll, P Curtis, J Burke, L Filipo, P Griffin. Repl.. R Kelly, P Williams, P Wright, G Cassidy.
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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