KYLE BROWN for Malcolm Barnes and Luke Sayer for the unavailable Ned Brown are the only two changes Raiders make to the starting XV for their trip to Southend Saxons on Saturday.

But while head coach Jordan Reynolds is hoping for another win, ideally with the extra bonus point, he insists the Saxons are no walkovers and last week’s remarkable result at Barnes - 97-7 - was one of those quirks of team sport.
‘Their results at home are completely different to when they are away and the fact that they are fighting to avoid relegation makes them dangerous,’ he said.
‘I think last week was one of those days when one side had a bad day and everything clicked for the other.
‘Southend have got some very good players. I think the problem has been that they were all brought in this season and it takes time to gel as a team, but they are starting to get traction now. ’

Certainly there is plenty of evidence that the 97-7 hammering was an aberration.
In the run-up to the Barnes nightmare they had beaten Shelford 34-26, lost by 6 at Guildford, beat Westcombe Park 28-25, lost by 4 at Dorking, lost by 19 to Hertford, beat Tunbridge Wells away and also Sutton & Epsom.
Thrown into the middle of that sequence was a 0-52 loss to Westcliff, but in the main the form graph is steady and not of a side struggling next to bottom of the table.

Clearly, at the moment, they are a bit like Forrest Gump’s infamous box of chocolates - you don’t know what you are going to get from the Saxons.

Raiders team:
Sam Steventon, Tom Ceillam, Layton Batiste, Lewis Hillier (c), Nick Merrien, Dan Hill, Dale Martin, Douglas Horrocks; Kyle Brown, Owen Thomas, Blair Campbell, Luke Jones, Anthony Armstrong, Luke Sayer, Sam Whitehead. Replacements: Cameron Craine, Charlie Currie, Malcolm Barnes.