Two unbeaten records are at stake when Old Patesians travel to Old Centralians on Saturday.

While it’s well documented that table-topping Pats have swept everything before them in South West One East this season – they travel to Saintbridge Sports Centre hoping to make it 12 wins out of 12 – it’s not been so well documented that the Cents have yet to lose at home this season.

“That’s a record we’re desperate to keep,” said Cents coach Jack Preece. “We want to be a hard place for teams to come to and play but we know it’s going to be real tough on Saturday.

“The Pats are really flying. They just missed out on promotion last season and they’re certainly good enough to go up this season. That’s not to say that they’re not beatable; they are, but we know we’ll have to be at our best to win.”

Four wins in their last five games have pushed Cents to a position just outside the top four although they are 16 points adrift of the runaway leaders, having won seven and lost four.

All seven of those wins have come at home while the four defeats have all been on their travels.

“We’ve been unlucky a couple of times,” added Preece. “We should have won at Banbury and came very close against Stratford. We definitely want to finish higher than last season when we came fourth. If we could finish in the top three that would be brilliant.”

Third place was where Pats ended last season but at this stage of the season all eyes at the Leckhampton-based club are on finishing the campaign on top of the pile, and climbing back into what is now known as South West Premier.

A win at Old Centralians will serve only to increase the optimism around the ambitious club even though after this weekend they will still have 14 league games to play.

Not that it’s going to be easy when they make the short trip over to Gloucester.

“It will be a real test,” said Pats rugby manager Norman Bell. “They always seem to raise their game on their turf against us and it’s going to be a good tussle.”

It will be Pats’ third game in a row on the road – they have seen off the bottom two Marlow and Grove with relative ease in their most recent runouts, when they have given a chance to some of the younger players in the squad.

“They were given the shirt and they did the job,” said Bell. “It’s given a chance for some of the other players to rest a few injuries.

“Everybody’s looking forward to the game on Saturday and I’ve had my eye on it for a while now. We’re going there full of optimism and we’ll certainly give it our best shot.”

Their best shot has certainly been good enough this season and although Pats started the season full of hope, only the bravest of their supporters would have expected them to be still unbeaten at this stage of the season, even though there were a significant number of new recruits in the summer.

“We did see an influx of a variety of different players,” said Bell. “I register the new players and I’ve not registered quite that many before.

“Players like Stefan Morgan and Richard Hance have come in and slotted into the first team really well. It’s quite unusual for players to come to the Pats and get into the first team quite so quickly.

“Morgan is quick and makes a real difference. He’s quite small and works well with the other wing Jimmy Gahan.

“Hance is a beast in the second row. Every time he gets the ball he seems to beat his man, he’s been a real find.”

And it’s not just the players who have been doing their stuff this season, Bell is also full of praise for the coaching staff.

“We’ve had some tough fixtures against Salisbury and Wimborne and we didn’t know what to expect when we played Banbury and Stratford,” Bell said.

“Head coach Craig Jones and his team have done a fantastic job. They’ve got the right levels of concentration and motivation and it’s paying dividends.

“We’re not the finished article but we’re getting there.”

If they win on Saturday, they’ll be that bit closer to being the finished article.