Still hurting from a poor first half against Peterlee last week, the Rockets make the short journey to Gateshead Stadium for their second league game of the season.

The side is largely unchanged from the previous outing, with three new faces in the starting line-up and two positional switches.

Luke Giles makes his league debut at prop alongside Adam Wilkinson who earns his first start of the season after some good efforts in training.

Kieron Arthur is rewarded for his man-of-the-match performance against the Pumas with a start in the second row, with Evan Coatsworth making the move to left centre and Lewis Marley to right wing to accommodate the change.

“To have a full match squad available during half term is great.” commented Coach Jeff Ball. “We’re only missing James Wells in the forwards due to family commitments while Matthew Newman is out for another couple of weeks with a broken bone in his hand.

We spoke at length about being disappointed with the attitude and effort in the last game and failing to work together in defence. Since then, we’ve had two really good training sessions working on that, especially last night when North East Academy Coach Jordan Robinson really showed the boys they can work to a much higher intensity then they probably realised.

We’ve had a bit of a reshuffle in the backs to strengthen our fringe defence while in the forwards I’m expecting a much more aggressive showing given who is starting and the options we have on the bench.

When we pick the team, we take into account it isn’t usually the players’ fault if they miss training but at the same time it is important we recognise those that put in good performances on the training paddock.

The quality of the guys that have dropped out of the starting line up just shows the strength in depth that is building and no one is guaranteed a starting place but everyone will have a chance to earn it back.

The main point we ended on after Wednesday training was let’s make sure we take what we’ve learnt in the last week and put it into practice on the day.

If we do that, we’ll be much more competitive and give a better account of ourselves.”

Starting line-up: 1. Ryan Hull; 2. Finlay Greenwood; 3. Evan Coatsworth; 4. Liam Murphy; 5. Lewis Marley; 6. James Nelson; 7. Thomas Menton; 8. Luke Giles; 9. Josh Dixon; 10. Adam Wilkinson; 11. Lewis Greenacre; 12. Kieron Arthur; 13. Owen Wright

Bench: 14. Jake Coulson; 15. Nathan Allen; 16. Allen Cunningham; 17. Nathan Beck; 18. Sam Shaw; 19. Jamie Boynton; 20. Liam Thompson.