BOTH sides might consider there to be some unfinished business as the second Premier Division Plymouth derby gets under way at Mount Wise tomorrow (1.30pm).

Plympton and Plymouth met at Harewood Park in week five this season and, while the home side walked away with 14 points from a winning draw, their rivals refused to capitulate with nine wickets down.

The points were certainly of more use to Plympton back then, duly moving them off the bottom of the table, and they could use a few right now, just to make sure they remain comfortable in mid-table.

Plymouth have not yet given up hope of catching North Devon for an outside chance of second place — meaning there is a lot more than local pride to play for.

The Plymouth captain, Callum Whittaker, is just hoping for the opportunity of a decent contest, without any interventions from the weather.

"Hopefully it won't be rain-affected this time, like the first one was," he said.

"I know it was just one of those things but it turned the game into a bit of a scrap.

"Everyone gets up for a game like this. We need to pick up maximum points really from now on, so that we have something to play for when North Devon visit in a couple of weeks.

"And Plympton could do with a few as well, just to make sure of safety. So it's pretty far from a dead rubber this one."

This match will be the fourth time the two first teams have met this season, with Plympton having slightly the upper hand following their winning draw in the league and one win apiece in two 20-20 meetings since.

This time Plymouth will have not-so-secret weapon George Stephenson up their sleeve, fresh from his 84 not out in their 10-run defeat against Bovey Tracey last week.

The 16-year-old tends to make a big impression for the side when he plays, which could not be often enough for Whittaker.

"George has been in and out of the side this season a lot because of school," he said.

"He played a couple of years ago for us against Sandford and hit 65 to win the game. He certainly adds a certain X-factor coming in at six."

Plympton will be looking to improve on the performance, if not the result, of last week's unlikely defeat of bottom-side Braunton.

Having posted just 68 runs in 41 overs, with only Keith Donohue and Duncan Hefford reaching double figures, the bowlers put in a vaguely miraculous effort to skittle their hosts out for 54.

Leading the attack was skipper Arwyn Jones and Donohue who claimed five wickets each as Braunton lost their last eight for just nine runs.

Jones knows they cannot expect such a return every week, and is hoping his batsmen can start showing the form he knows they are capable of to make their task a little more realistic.

"I've got every confidence in my players," he said. "They just need to have the same level of confidence in themselves.

"When you play a local derby you don't want to struggle, although we do seem to always have close games against Plymouth since they came up."

Plympton make only one change from last week's side, with David Wrench coming in to replace Alex Carr, who drops down to the seconds.

That means another Plympton side minus a number of recognised batsmen, made up with second-team regulars, but Jones is not reading too much into their apparent struggles last week.

"There weren't a lot of balls to hit to be honest because of the nature of the track," he said. "It was very tricky to score on.

"We got to 68 which was actually more akin to 120 in the conditions. And when I started to bowl on it I thought there was something in it for us.

"I had a feeling there might be. I went on to bat with us on 54 and said to the umpire that I thought it could be enough. And I was right."

It is unlikely to be quite enough this week, however.

Plymouth: Whittaker, Toms, Jury, J Luffman, S Luffman, Minett, Read, Burke, Stephenson, Hooper, Hill

Plympton: A Walter, D Robotham, J Carr, D Wrench, D Hefford, H Farrer, A Jones (capt), K Donohue, R Skinner, C Donohue, S Anwar