WINNING the RFU Senior Vase at Twickenham on Saturday should be just the start for Selby RUFC, believes head coach Richard Nicholson.

The Swans chief takes his side to the home of rugby this weekend as they meet Gloucester-based Drybrook in a showpiece final in front of a crowd of thousands.

With promotion back to Yorkshire One secured thanks to a dominant win at league leaders Doncaster Phoenix last time out, Nicholson’s men now have the chance to write their names into the club’s history books – by winning a major final and then securing the Yorkshire Two title by beating Sheffield Medicals a week later.

It’s a hugely exciting time for the club, which is taking at least five coach-loads of supporters to London. And Nicholson, the driving force for a team that have lost just three games in the league all season and are on a run of 18 straight victories in all competitions, has ambitions to take this group of players even higher.

“We have spoken about it,” he said. “We’ve talked about what Pocklington have done going up two or three levels. There is no reason, if we stick together and keep working hard and improving, why we can’t do the same.

“I would love to do it with this group. That ultimately would be our target. I am not saying it will happen in the next season or two. It might take another couple of years to get up to that level but, with a couple of additions to the squad and a bit more depth, we could really get up there.”

On Drybrook, who are 13 points clear in the Gloucester Premier and have lost just one of their 22 league matches, Nicholson is steeling himself and his team for a far tougher test than they have experienced in the Senior Vase so far.

“If you look at their league, they have pretty much dominated it, so they are a club on the way up,” he added.

“They obviously score a lot of points and, from what we’ve heard, they have got a pretty good defence as well so it sounds like it is going to be a cracker.

“We are really, really looking forward to it and, to be honest, the games up until now – probably aside from the semi-final (a 36-8 win at Stourbridge) – were not the biggest tests.

“Going out of the county and the region, we found the level is not the same.

“The semi-final was a tough game for about an hour but we were just fitter than the other side and we ran away with the last 20 (minutes).

“We fully expect it to be a really tough, hard, battle against a load of Gloucester boys that are not going to want to lie down.”

• See The Press tomorrow for a full preview of the RFU Senior Vase final at Twickenham.