WELLINGTON Rugby Club will be stepping up their build-up to the new season when they play a pre-season friendly away to Bridgwater & Albion on Thursday, August 22.

Wellington's players have been involved in twice-weekly training sessions for some time now, and head coach Graham Dawe said: "The players have been training hard. They have certainly been putting in the effort .Only a couple of last season's side have been missing.

"Hopefully they will turn up because they need to get into the groove pretty quickly."

The former England and Bath hooker added: "They've been a couple of new faces at training - and hopefully they will be challenging for first team places."

The twice-weekly sessions are being taken by Dawe, former first team skipper Tim Jenkinson and Brad Field.

The first team’s opening game of the new season in Regional Two South West is a derby clash at home to Cullompton on Saturday, September 7.

Danny Lee will be continuing as skipper of the lst XV while Andrew Bellamy remains captain of the 2nd XV whose displays were much improved last season.

The club will be celebrating its 150th year anniversary and is planning a number of events to mark the occasion.