Fylde will check on injuries to full back Mike Waywell, flanker Dave Wilks and prop Sam Simpson when promotion candidates Loughborough Students visit the Woodlands on Saturday.

But better news is the return to fitness of talented back five player Grant Ferguson. He has lost more or less two full seasons with injuries but in the few minutes that he played against Nuneaton on Saturday he caused his usual havoc on opposition lineout ball.

Loughborough have a reputation for playing an open, fast and entertaining style although no one should get the impression this is a team of carefree students, tactically naive, who just want to play a Corinthian kind of 'devil may care' rugby. Under lead coach Dave Morris, their squad includes a number of players who've already tasted the heat of battle in professional rugby so there's little doubt that they're streetwise.

The Students' first few weeks of national league competition was always likely to be difficult as their squad didn't get together until mid-August and they didn't have their 'freshers', the 2008/9 intake, available.

They earned their first win of the season last Saturday by overcoming last season's league runners-up, Darlington Mowden Park, at home in a tight 19-17 affair.

There's little doubt they'll be really up for a trip to the Woodlands ground to take on Fylde.