Yorkshire Carnegie v Newport-Gwent Select - Carnegie planning to go one better in B&I Cup

They are ‘on the road’ at Pontefract RUFC’s Moor Lane tomorrow to host a Dragons Premiership Select side in their Pool Five encounter.

Bryan Redpath’s Carnegie have lost just once in the Championship this term and are intent on pushing favourites London Irish all the way for the title.

But, having reached the B&I Cup final last term only to lose to London Welsh, they are keen to go one step further in that competition, too.

“We’re in very good form and the confidence we’ve built this season can now be taken into this B&I Cup game,” said McColl. “We had a bit of a setback against Ealing in the first game but got back on track when beating Bedford at Selby in the cup and we want to back that up now.

“Brush (Redpath) has told us, for all that people might think we just want to concentrate on promotion, this is another opportunity to get to another final and win some silverware.

“Another win this weekend would go a long way to helping us move towards that.”

Redpath has made a raft of changes following last Friday’s scrappy 28-15 Championship win against Bedford, including handing a debut to Scotland Under-20s tight-head prop Gary Robertson, who has arrived on a two-week loan from the Scottish Rugby Union.

McColl, 28, said: “I don’t know too much about him but he’s a good, talented lad who has a good pedigree coming from Gala, a very proud Borders club.

“Ross Graham, who is playing hooker, knows a lot about him as he’s from around that area. Gary has settled in pretty well and he’s with us for at least two weeks.

“He’s had to quickly learn the calls and line-outs and things but, hopefully, he’ll get chance to express himself on Sunday.

“Last week, we got into the bad habit of letting a team get back into a game when we’d had plenty of control.

“Fortunately, we rode that storm out but know we can’t keep doing that.”

Tomorrow’s game at Moor Lane kicks-off at 2pm.