Arscott brothers gunning for victory over hometown club

BROTHERS Luke and Tom Arscott will be gunning for their hometown team tomorrow when Plymouth Albion entertain Bristol at Brickfields (3pm).

The former St Boniface School pupils both left Albion for Bristol to fulfil their dreams of playing in the Premiership.

Utility back Luke moved to the Memorial Stadium in 2006 and winger/full-back Tom joined the following year.

But Bristol were relegated from the top flight at the end of last season and the Arscotts now find themselves facing their hometown team for the first time.

"I've been looking forward to this game since getting over the disappointment of getting relegated," said 22-year-old Tom (pictured above), who scored a hat-trick last week against Coventry.

"It's my hometown and my former club so there are obvious reasons why I want to go back and play there.

"I will have a lot of family and friends there and I will want to play well.

"But the important thing is for us (Bristol) to have a good team performance.

"Last week we put a good team performance in against Coventry. We want to carry that on."

Albion's boss Graham Dawe knows the Arscotts, who he helped develop, will be keen to impress on their old stomping ground.

"Hopefully, they will enjoy coming back to Brickfields," said Dawe.

"I am sure they will come back trying to give a reminder of what good players they are.

"They will be trying to drive their team over the finish line."

Bristol's other two former Albion players – winger Lee Robinson and fly-half Ed Barnes – are unfit to play tomorrow.

"I think they are disappointed to be missing the game," said Arscott. "But both are going to be coming down anyway."

He added: "There have been a lot of changes at Albion since I was there. There are not many boys left who I played with."

Albion have not met Bristol since March 19, 2005 when the two teams were battling it out for a place in the Premiership.

Dawe's side had beaten Bristol four times in two seasons going into that game, but they lost that crucial league fixture 38-23.

Had Albion won that match they would have been in pole position for promotion to the Premiership.

"That game was over four years ago," said Dawe.

"We had won the four previous games, but come that day we were missing five front line forwards – Dan Ward-Smith, Andy Perry, Martin Schusterman, Tino Paoletti and Altan Ozdemir.

"That win for Bristol virtually secured their return to the Premiership.

"But you can't look back at the past, certainly not at this moment in time."