Borough boys are ready to push hard for promotion

Borough finished fourth in Midlands Division One East under then new head coach Phil Powell last term.

And now Powell has set his sights on promotion. That means winning the title to achieve automatic promotion or finishing second to enter the play-offs.

Borough start their campaign at old rivals Old Northamptonians tomorrow (September 7).

“We’re after promotion this season and I am convinced we can do it,” Powell stated.

“We’ve recruited well so we look stronger than last season. We cerainly have more depth to the squad.

“Pre-season has been tough. We’ve had some hard games. but we’re raring to go this weekend.

“It’s a competitive division, but we fancy our chances.

“We have a tough start as we played poorly at ONs last season when we let ourselves be distracted by a big social event taking place at the ground.

“We beat them well at our place though.”

Among the new Borough recruits are talented Irish prop Joe Johnson and back row man Ben Higton.

Aran Watkins has moved across to Fengate from Deeping, while former Borough man Rob Jacobs is back at the club.

Borough, who lost their final friendly of pre-season 54-4 at a strong Cambridge second XV, have lost penalty-taking full-back Joe Andresen, who will be playing for Guernsey this season.

“Cambridge fielded a really strong side so we were always going to be up against it,” Powell added.

“We won’t face anything like them again this season. We actually played pretty well considering the opposition.”

Peterborough Lions have reportedly lost 16 players since relegation from the National League at the end of last season.

They are at Bromsgrove for their first Midlands Premier Division match on Saturday.