OLD Halesonians captain Chris Wagstaff says his side have a gameplan in place to try and stop league leaders Dudley Kings-winford on Saturday (ko 2.15pm).

“If we can keep their back line under control and steal some of their ball up front I think we could really challenge them,” said Wagstaff, “but if we don’t it could be a pretty hard day for us!”

The Old Hales skipper dimissed any idea derby fixtures are losing relevance and stressed how much the game will mean to the home crowd.

“There are a number of old boys among our supporters who never had the chance to play DK in league fixtures,” added Wagstaff, “traditionally they have been three or four leagues higher than us but now we’ve come up a couple of leagues and they’ve come down a couple it’s nice for the fans to be able to see a game like this.

“Mentally it’s important for our players that it’s a derby game.

“Although the make-up of our side nowadays mean we don’t have solely home-grown players it will always be an important fixture. The players will always raise themselves for a derby game and although DK are top of the league you never know what might happen when tempers flare and players are raising their game because of the nature of the fixture.

“They will obviously come looking for a win but although we weren’t as close to them as we would have liked in last year’s league games we did beat them in the cup which gives us hope for the weekend.”

Wagstaff admitted he was still smarting from the late, late drop goal which condemned his side to defeat at Bournville at the weekend. The visitors were sitting on a healthy advantage at the break only to see it whittled down in the second period, culminating in heartbreak at the death.