“It will be a crackerjack of a game.”

Those are the words of Tewkesbury’s director of rugby Martin Thomas as he looks ahead to Saturday’s crunch Counties 3 Gloucestershire North clash at Bredon Star.

Geographically the two clubs are very close – they are fewer than five miles apart – and in terms of their league positions they’re even closer with just one place and a handful of points separating them.

Second-placed Tewkesbury hold a five-point advantage but Bredon have a game in hand so it’s easy to see why there is such excitement among the supporters of both clubs ahead of their Saturday showdown.

Leaders Gloucester Old Boys, who have 10 wins from 10 games, are nine points ahead of Tewkesbury and are clear favourites to take one of the two promotion spots up for grabs.

At this stage, the race for second spot in the 12-strong division would appear to be between Tewkesbury and Bredon, with Thomas adding: “It could be a league defining game. Gloucester Old Boys seem to be running away with it which makes our game on Saturday quite crucial.”

The two teams have already met in the league this season and typically it was very, very tight with Tewkesbury just getting home 36-35.

“We were quite well ahead of them at one stage but they came back strongly,” recalled Thomas.

That game back at the start of September was Rory Teague’s second league game as head coach – they won the first 28-10 at Matson 2nds – after he joined the club in the summer.

The 38-year-old former England attack coach, who was at French club Racing 92 last season, lives just outside Tewkesbury and his influence is clearly being felt.

“The team are gelling under his leadership and expertise,” added Thomas.

Indeed they are and they go into Saturday’s game in excellent form having won their last six games.

Their two defeats – 33-5 at Cheltenham Saracens and 26-10 at home to Gloucester Old Boys – both came in September and there is a real feel-good factor around the club at the moment.

They have already matched the number of wins – eight – they achieved in the whole of the last league campaign when they finished in sixth spot.

That was one place below Bredon but the gap between the two clubs was actually quite wide with Bredon finishing 17 points ahead of their near neighbours.

Bredon won 16-0 at home to Tewkesbury back in March, avenging a 19-12 defeat to Tewkesbury at The Moats in November, and are on a good run of form themselves.

They bounced back from a narrow 26-20 reverse at Gloucester Old Boys midway through last month with a thumping 87-7 win over Chosen Hill 2nds last time out and Thomas said: “It will be a cracker on Saturday. We hope we’ll have plenty of fans at the game, it’s a proper derby.”

And those fans who do head over to Bredon Playing Fields will know, like Thomas, just how important Saturday’s game is in the race for a place in Counties 2 Gloucestershire North.

“We want to go as far as we can,” said Thomas. “We just want to keep going.”

Saturday’s game kicks off at 2.30pm.