SATURDAY'S visit to Ireland Avenue to face Nottingham is possibly one of Sedgley Park's most important games of the season.

That is because like Sedgley, Nottingham have been tipped for relegation, so a win over the green and whites' could be worth 10 points come the end of the season.

With that in mind Tigers' player-coach Tim Fourie will be going down to Robin Hood country determined to rob at least four from the relatively points rich (Nottingham currently have 12), to distribute to the relatively points poor down at Park Lane (Sedgley currently have nine).

To do that, Tim's Tigers will have to overcome what could prove to be a fatal flaw in their play.

"The difference between them and us is that they have picked up four bonus points, while we have only picked up one," he explained.

"Also, we always seem to be vulnerable in the first 10 minutes, and with Nottingham known as particularly good starters, we have been working on ways of turning things around.

"Each guy takes it in turn to deliver a talk at training, this week it was Jon Feeley and he focused on our poor starts.

"Over the past couple of years our guys have not tended to think about the game until three o'clock. So we are now working on giving them a focal point to concentrate on from Tuesday onwards, and this week it has been our slow starts.

"We believe this approach is working because so far it has helped in bringing down the number of mis-tackles we make.

"Hopefully we will now be switched on from the first whistle. We have to hit the field running, we can't wait five minutes, concede a try and receive a rollocking before we switch on."

He also believes that the way Nottingham play will help.

"They like to play open rugby like us," he said.

"They won't dominate us up front, however, last year they cut us to pieces on the outside, so we have to be aware of that.

"But we will go there looking to come away with five points.

"Last week we played Exeter, who have the best defensive record in the league, and we scored three tries.

"So we will go to Nottingham confident of scoring at least four tries and winning by more than seven.

"That will ensure we come away with five points, while at the same time to deny five.

"If we can do that it will set us up well for the rest of the season and push us further up the table."

SEDGLEY v Nottingham: de Jager, Feeley, Naylor, Voortman, WElding, Feeney, Wilkinson, Du Plessis, Oxley, Thomas, Fourie, Lund, Senior, Ponton, Skurr. Replacements: Keys, Collie, Lourens, Hall, McCormack, Hassan, Glynn.