ILKLEY are on the road again as they resume their North Premier League programme.

Buoyed by last week’s 51-19 Yorkshire Cup win at Cleckheaton, the Dalesmen will be eager to return to winning ways in the league at Pocklington.

The match has been switched to the North Yorkshire club’s ground because Stacks Field is staging Leeds Carnegie’s British & Irish Cup tie against London Scottish on Sunday.

This will be the third of four successive away matches for Ilkley who will be without a number of first team regulars due to injury and unavailability.

Stand-off Charles Morgan and number eight JH Johnson have both been ruled out by injury while prop Ollie Holtman is unavailable.

Head coach Nathan Smith said: “Injuries are part and parcel of the game, but we do seem to have an increasing number of players nursing knocks.

“JH Johnson injured his knee and went off early at Sandal two weeks ago while Charles Morgan was concussed in the same game.

“We will look at the options at training tonight and decide what we are going to do.”

Ben Fairclough, a new signing from Otley, impressed on his debut at Cleckheaton and is battling for the number ten shirt with Charlie Ramsay, while Johnson’s absence could lead to Smith lending his experience to the pack.

“I would never have imagined that we would be short on back row players when we started the season with so many, but our numbers have dwindled through injury,” said Smith.

The coach is expecting a forward battle against newly-promoted Pocklington who have made a slow start to the season.

“I am sure they will be feeling that this is a winnable game and we will need to be on our guard. I hope we can play like we did at Cleckheaton.

“We scored some good tries and also defended well. However, it is important that we become more ruthless in our finishing.

“We have only managed to get a bonus point for scoring four tries once this season.

“Bonus points can prove important at the end of the season and it is something we will hope to address in our coming matches.

“What pleased me last week was the way we built a match-winning lead early by kicking three penalty goals to put points on the board before adding some fine tries.