Batley's pre-season friendly with Dewsbury must've been interesting.

Not for them 80 minutes of derby-driven rivalry, oh no. In a 'game' that saw both sides' first and second strings have a blow out, the game was played over four 25 minute quarters (two games of 25 minutes each way with some players doubling up in both games. Novel.).

Anyway, the upshot was that - no matter how you cut it - Batley lost (12-22 and 0-18).

Given the amount of remedial work Paul Storey's done on last season's squad they might take a week or two to click.

Batley have brought in 18 new players in the close season -including three from the London Broncos, four from Huddersfield Giants and two from Leeds Rhinos.

Prop Yusef Sozi broke into the Broncos first team late last season, while Michael Forbes played on the wing and Gareth Honor at hooker.

Michael Bostock, Daniel Mills and David Rourke all came from the Giants. The first two are wing/centres, Rourke is a forward who had been on the fringe of the Giants first team. Ade Leek completes the ex-Giants quartet.

Dean Lawford - a half back or hooker - has had Super League experience with the Rhinos and Halifax Blue Sox and played most recently with Dewsbury. Phew!

New signings Marvin Cox and Andy Spink in the front row will be looking to make the most of the fact that Scully won't be there to make them look pedestrian. Also in the squad is 'big' Joe Nadiole, formerly of Oldham and Featherstone.

Batley use this game to launch their new half-back partnership of Glen Tomlinson and Dean Lawford. Tomlinson has a reputation as a... er... tenacious character and we trust that Lawford has fewer chins in reality than he appears to have on his Batley website photo. Centre Danny Maun is also expected to return following a long layoff through injury.

Named in the Batley17 is former Hornet Chris Hough, who's had to move to get a shot at first team football. As is usually the case, he'll be looking to prove us wrong. But as we know better than most what he's capable of, he'll be worthy of close attention - if he gets off the bench that is.

The squad listed on the Batley Website is:
1 Jeremy Dyson, 2 Paul Gleadhill, 3 Danny Maun, 4 Ryan Horsley, 5 Chris North, 6 Glen Tomlinson, 7 Dean Lawford, 8 Andy Spink, 9 Mark Cass 10 Marvin Cox, 11 David Rourke, 12 Will Cartledge, 13 Ady Leek. Subs from. Chris Hough, Nick Simpson, Joe Naidole, Craig Stevens, Mark Toohey, Richard Gibson, and Gary Smith.

As for Hornets, Hally will have a full complement to choose from - with just one notable excepetion, Scully. However, given that Danny only really played for 25 minutes in last week's game against Oldham, we look pretty well equipped to cover his huge absence. Wes Rogers looks ready to step into the big lad's shoes with style - and with Andy Ireland ready and available to play, we've got big, mobile props coming out of our ears.

Elsewhere we're reckoning that it'll look much like last week, perhaps with Danny Wood and Damian Ball switching places, leaving Richard Agar with the kicking duites. But perhaps not.

Hornets came through last week's game with no injuries and start the season at full strength - what a contrast to last year.

We'd guess that the 17 would look like:
1. Paul Owen, 2. Sean Cooper, 3. Brendan O'Meara, 4. Matt Calland, 5. Marlon Billy, 6. Richard Agar, 7. Latham Tawhai, 8. Andy Ireland, 9. Richard Pachniuk, 10. Wes Rogers, 11. Paul Smith, 12. David larder, 13. Danny Wood/Damian Ball. Subs: 14. Damian Ball/Danny Wood, 15. Joe Berry, 16. James Bunyan, 17. Matt Long.
Blimey - gets you excited just typing that!

The fixtures have given Hornets a real springboard for our season and I'm sure that Martin Hall will have made that perfectly clear to his charges. A big win on Sunday would be the best possible way to get this season's bandwagon underway.

It's been a long autumn. This is the weekend we've been waiting for. Hornets' National League challenge starts here. You'd be mad to miss it. See you there.