It would be remiss of me not to start this week's view with an apology to Oran Riddle, who’s season debut a couple of weeks ago against Amersham and Chiltern went largely unrecognised.

Oran, son of current club president ‘Gridds’ and grandson of previous club president Jim Riddle, as well as multiple other family connections to the club, is yet another product of a great mini and youth system.

Unfortunately for Oran, his 2nd appearance will be memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Within two minutes of entering the field of play as a replacement, he sustained what looked like a very nasty eyelid injury and was whisked off to A&E.

What we can say for sure is that Oran has certainly inherited the fearless Riddle gene that leads them to instinctively insert their heads into places where you wouldn't even send your mother-in-law!

Luckily, the injury turned out not to be as serious as first feared and after some delicate work with needle and thread Oran will be back on the field very soon.

In another cruel twist of fate, our injury woes continued last week in the loss to Letchworth, when midway through the second-half, we lost 2nd row Sonny Swift to a dislocated shoulder. He did return to Hoe Lane later in the evening in order to start his rehab which seemed to include trying to lift up a full pint glass! (Don’t tell Charlotte)

Although we narrowly won the second-half, Letchworth’s comfortable half time lead was enough to see them deservedly take the spoils.

Whilst we played really well in patches, The physicality of the larger Letchworth pack and a few lapses In concentration and defence was the difference between the sides. I feel I should mention so the big contribution of Kyle Lemon in orchestrating the second-half mini comeback. Very impressive for an old man!

Onto this week. Our opponents, Old Northamptonians have vacated the number three spot and sit one place above us in fourth, albeit with a reasonably comfortable six point margin.

They are, however, having a bit of a rough time of it at the moment following last week's loss to strugglers Bedford Athletic which came hot on the heels of defeats to Letchworth and Southend. We also took the spoils 35-27 in the home tie, back in November. So as always in this league, victory is possible if everything goes right.

The loss of Sonny is mitigated by his replacement, in the form of the returning Alex Banna….. he’ll do.

We also see the return of impressive young prop Finn Bloomer, back from his missionary work in the east of the County.

Chasing our tails are Shelford and an ever improving Southend. Looking at the run in for all sides I would predict we would probably need seven or eight points to maintain our fifth position, which is certainly achievable.

And finally, it would be remiss of me not to offer our congratulations on behalf of the club to old boy Jamie George who will be making his 100th England appearance tomorrow. His recent impacts off the bench have certainly been a factor in Englands improved performance so let's see what he can achieve when he's back playing the 1st 60 as opposed to the last 20.

So, good luck Jamie, see you soon Oran, get well soon Sonny and come on Hertford.

See you there, mine’s a Guinness.