Captain Ben Goodey is fit and firing and ready to lead Fairford’s charge as they go looking for win number six in Gloucestershire One this season.

They travel to bottom-of-the-table North Bristol tomorrow in good heart after winning five and drawing one of their previous eight games, a run that has catapulted them up to third following last season’s promotion.

Tighthead prop Goodey has missed a large chunk of the season with a broken nose – he was out for a couple of months – but he returned last week to play the full 80 minutes in Fairford’s 32-19 home win over Old Colstonians.

“That was quite an achievement after being out for so long,” said the 29-year-old, “it was a good blow.”

Fairford’s win was important after they’d gone down 13-7 at Gordon League the previous week and even though North Bristol are propping up the rest of the division they will be no pushovers this weekend, not least because they play on an artificial grass pitch.

It will be the first time that Goodey has played on such a surface although it will be the second time for most of his team-mates because St Brendan’s Old Boys, who are fourth in the division. also play on an artificial pitch.

Goodey was sidelined when Fairford travelled to St Brendan’s back in September and watched on as his team lost 24-14 in what was only their second game of the campaign.

Fairford have kicked on a lot since then, of course, winning five of their last six league games and their supporters will certainly be hopeful of returning to the Cotswolds with a bonus-point victory under their belts.

Not that that will be easy because North Bristol have improved in recent weeks. They won their first league game of the campaign on 9th November when they defeated Cirencester 26-20 and pushed Dursley hard before going down 25-15 six days ago.

“North Bristol have got fantastic facilities,” added Goodey. “In terms of structure, they are what we aspire to be, they’ve got a humungus set-up.”