YORK Acorn ARLC boss Scott Rhodes admits he knows little of Saturday’s visitors Pilkington Recs - apart from the fact they’re going to be dangerous.

The St Helens outfit, previously North West Counties League big-guns, joined the National Conference League in 2013 and, like Cumbrian counterparts Kells, have since won back-to-back promotions to join Acorn in division one.

Kells have so far continued on that upward curve, with three straight wins, and, although Recs have lost two of their four games in this tier, they sit only one place and one point behind Acorn, having amassed 100 points in attack.

Said Rhodes: “We haven’t played them before, and I don’t know a lot about them.

“But I was talking to someone at Ince Rose Bridge and they said they’re a big set with a lot of threat out wide, so we’ve got to pay special attention to that - make sure we’re on top of our game out wide, especially in defence - and just do what we’ve been doing.

“They’ve come up through the divisions in consecutive years. Both Kells and Pilkington Recs have done that, and Elland are working their way up as well - they’re going to be decent teams. We’ve tried to get some info on them and we’ll base our game plan around that.

I’m sure if we’re on top of our game and playing well, if we keep to our systems like in the last three or four games, we’ll win the game.

“It’s a home game and I always say home games are must-win games if you’re going to do anything in the league.”

Acorn’s last outing was at Ince Rose before Easter, when their unbeaten start ended with a 32-12 defeat to the team that head the table with four straight wins.

But Rhodes, whose side are still the division’s top scorers with 144 points, gained encouragement from that game as they look to return to the premier division of amateur rugby league’s flagship league.

“We were unlucky in a lot of ways at Ince Rose,” he reasoned. “We started well, which is something we haven’t been doing, but there was torrential rain and we made a couple of individual errors that Ince Rose capitalised on.”

Rhodes has virtually a full squad to pick from but is set to stick largely with the lads who have so far won two, drawn one and lost one. “Despite the defeat, I saw enough in that game,” he said.

“Ince Rose is always a tricky place to go - they really get stuck into you - but we weren’t a millions miles away. There was not a lot in it and I came away with a bit of confidence that we can go on and beat the top teams.”