Good evening and welcome back to the Athletic Ground for today’s Round 12 encounter against Nottingham in the Greene King IPA Championship. I will take this opportunity to welcome the officials, the travelling Nottingham support and of course the London Scottish faithful.
I hope everyone enjoyed the start of the Six Nations last weekend. On Thursday myself, along with a strong team of London Scottish cyclists, took part in the Wounded Lions 500 Challenge alongside former Scottish captain and Exiles player, Rob Wainwright.
We joined forces with Rob and his team at Twickenham Stadium, and took part in two legs of this challenge to deliver the match day ball to Murrayfield in time for the Calcutta Cup on Saturday. It’s all in aid of raising funds for Doddie Weir’s foundation ‘My Name’5 Doddie’ and Tom Smith’s foundation ‘40TUDE’.
Thank you so much for all of you who have donated thus far and helped us to raise over £11,000. Any donations, big or small, are much appreciated and can be made here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/londonscottishwoundedlions500
Back to tonight’s game, Nottingham are a team that we have played on several occasions this season in the Championship Cup and the League. The Exiles claimed the win at home at the start of the season in the Cup and then lost both away fixtures to the Midlands based side towards the end of last year.
Nottingham come into this match off the back of an impressive win away to Yorkshire Carnegie last time out and have climbed up to 8th in the table.
This is our last match under the lights this season. When this season’s fixtures were announced having so many Friday night fixtures was a concern, but I for one have thoroughly enjoyed them and the curry that have been served in pre-match hospitality.
Today’s fixture is an important one for us to move ourselves from the bottom end of the table. There are a lot of teams currently sitting on 22 points. Without another game at home until mid-March, a win tonight would mean a lot. I’m looking forward to seeing these two sides go head to head again one final time this season!