ILKLEY will want to make up for their heavy defeat at Blackburn earlier this season when they host the sixth-placed side at Stacks Field on Saturday.

Rhys Morgan's men suffered a 64-7 loss in the reverse fixture and have since struggled sitting at the foot of the North Premier table, 10 points adrift of Alnwick.

Blackburn do come into the match in good form though, winning four out of the their last six fixtures over a busy Christmas period.

However, the motivation of gaining revenge over their Lancashire opponents this weekend may inspire the Dalesman to gain their second victory in three matches.

Head of Rugby Morgan believes it is the perfect opportunity for his players to show Blackburn that they are no pushovers.

He said: "We were comprehensively beaten at Blackburn and didn’t show up at all, it was our worst performance of the season.

"The lads need to look at that game and decide if that is the mark they are at.

"They need to come out fighting and turn that around.

"Blackburn are a good team with strength in depth, with us being at home we are going to go out there and give it our best shot.

"Tom Dickinson and Joe Lowes should be back so we are hoping that will help in the scrummage area.

"Joe Paton is back in the squad, he was unlucky to miss out before, but he has stuck at it and been fantastic over these past few weeks.

"It is up to the players to right the wrongs of what happened at Blackburn, I hope they can raise to the challenge."

Ilkley returned to being on the wrong side of results last weekend at Macclesfield, going down 36-7 despite taking the lead in the early stages of the first half.

Morgan thinks it was a chance missed to pick up the win in Cheshire and was ultimately disappointed with the result.

He said: "We scored the first try and we were looking really good.

"We then missed two penalty kicks which would have put us in a reasonable position.

"They scored just before half-time so we went in just slightly down at break after gifting them a chance.

"We made too many mistakes by dropping the ball in our own territory and they capitalised.

"We were struggling in the scrum with six changes to our starting eight but that was no excuse though, we had a strong enough team out.

"In the second half we lost Chuckie Ramsey in the first minute and lost our shape, they got a couple of fortunate tries and ran away with it.

"The boys knew that they didn’t play to their potential, I was a bit disappointed because I think we had a chance to get the win."

ROWAN NEWMAN