BASINGSTOKE RFC will hope to ease their relegation worries and get back to winning ways when mid-table Charlton Park are the visitors to Down Grange on Saturday (3pm).

The home side are expecting a big crowd for the game and will look to make the cage an intimidating environment for the visitors, who beat them in the reverse fixture earlier in the season.

However, in that contest, injuries and a yellow card saw ’Stoke unable to contest the scrum in the second half, something the home side took full advantage of.

’Stoke have suffered in recent weeks and will hope to turn things around in the final two months of the campaign as they look to move out of the London One South relegation zone.

Charlton Park won their last away game, beating Basingstoke’s fellow strugglers Twickenham. In their last game a fortnight ago they only lost by four points at home to promotion-chasing Sutton and Epsom.

Basingstoke will start as underdogs, but will be boosted by the news that club captain Guy Wilkin-son and Matt Woodhouse have both recovered from knocks they picked up in their side’s last outing, a defeat at promotion-chasing Sidcup.

The week off certainly benefitted ’Stoke, and chairman of senior playing Steve Parker is confident going in to the game.

“I have to admit I was not looking forward to our last game at Sidcup, but this one I am,” he said. “I hope we have plenty of vocal support for the boys as they can feed off this.”

He added: “We are getting better with every game I have seen, so I want the players to once again go out and express themselves.

“We had good periods of play against Sidcup, but we just could not get the ball over the try line.”

Stoke have been traditional slow starters this season and Parker is determined to stop this happening on Saturday.

He said: “We are looking at changing the warm-up so we come out with intensity from the start. It is important we do not let them get a foothold in the game in the first 15 minutes.”