Guernsey are away to Leicester Lions and four new signings are set to start with hooker Joe Callery, lock Joel Broadhurst and flanker Iwan Shenton all selected in the pack while Gwyn Parks will pull the strings at fly-half.
Two youngsters, Ted Wakeham and Ozzie Kent, could also make their competitive first-team bows off the bench.
‘They are probably making an obvious impact on the pitch, but I have to say one of the biggest impacts they really make is off the pitch,’ said Guernsey director of rugby Jordan Reynolds on how the new players have settled in.
‘We can see within the group a new enthusiasm that has come in with the new additions and the standards have really been set in terms of how we train and how we want to drive things forward. They are good architects of what that looks like.’
Reynolds deliberately arranged two tough pre-season fixtures this summer, with quality sides from Rennes and Newport visiting Footes Lane last month, to set the bar high for his side and also give him and the coaching staff a good indication on what aspects of their game they need to work on.
He and his coaches saw progress between those two games and he relieved that the squad have been working hard on the lessons learnt against Newport in the lead up to facing Leicester.
‘We are just super excited to get into a league game now,’ he said.
‘We had challenging fixtures in pre-season, improvements have been made and now we are start the season against a National One club from last season.
‘These sides who come down from Step Three generally tend to sit up in the top half of our league, so it is going to be a really tough game, but we are excited about it – why not take on one of potentially the best sides in the league first up and see where we are?’
Raiders are without captain Dom Rice, who is easing his way back into training after a minor operation, as well as Dale Rutledge, Callum Roberts, Michael Cantle and another new signing in Fynn Smail. Tom Teasdale is also an absentee.
They also started last season with several regulars missing, but Reynolds believes the squad depth is much greater 12 months on.
‘For game one away to Henley last season, we put in a fairly spirited performance, but you could see we were really struggling depth-wise across the park.
‘I would like to say for going through those kinds of challenges together back then, we have come out stronger the other side and I do not have any concerns about the squad selected for Leicester, if anything I’m excited by it.’
Unusually for him, though, he reported that he knows ‘absolutely nothing’ about what to expect from the Lions.
‘Normally we would have a fair idea, especially a team coming down from National One, but they have got a whole new coaching staff, they have got some new players and a coach will not have the chance to implement his whole philosophy and ideas in a summer – it takes pretty much a whole season.
‘In a way that’s good for us because we have just been able to focus on ourselves since the two pre-season games and we have had some pretty powerful sessions over the last couple of weeks.
‘What we do know is any club coming down will feel they have a point to prove and week one at home of a new season is as good an opportunity as any, so it will be a challenge for us but one we are looking forward to.’
PROVISIONAL RAIDERS TEAM
Wrafter, Callery, Dromantas, Webb, Broadhurst, Shenton, Creber, Poullet, Simmonds, Parks, Smith, Dawe, C McGann, A Armstrong, M Armstrong.
Replacements: Le Noury, Currie, Bray, Wakeham, Kent.
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