Bury St Edmunds’ Will Affleck is relishing the visit of Esher to the Greene King IPA Haberden tomorrow

Will Affleck says the Bury St Edmunds players are relishing what they feel is going to be their ‘toughest test’ at the Greene King IPA Haberden so far this season when Esher come to town tomorrow (3pm).

The Surrey side find themselves back in a league fixture with Bury having spent a season up in National League 1.

And they appear to have found their feet again in the fourth tier following relegation, having racked up four straight wins, after an opening day single point defeat, to leave them third in National League 2 East.

Bury go into the fixture protecting a perfect home record, currently standing at four matches, but are still without an away victory after losing out 26-17 at Tonbridge Juddians on Saturday, which followed a 37-21 scoreline at Henley.

However, winger Affleck felt they deserved more than they got in Kent with plenty of positives for Jacob Ford to draw out of the performance.

“We were all very disappointed as we went down there and felt we played all the rugby but felt like we gave them a lot of points and perhaps did not get some we should have ourselves,” he said of a game which saw them trail 11-10 at the interval with Brayden Porteous’ first-half try and a Ben Penfold penalty followed by a converted try from George Loose after 51 minutes.

“In terms of effort and application it was spot on but we were disappointed not to have that reflected in league points.

“Tonbridge is a tough place to go though so to be disappointed with not getting anything from there is a good reflection of where we’re at as a team.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s game, against a side they lost out to narrowly 40-36 at the Haberden in December 2021, he said: “It is probably the toughest test we have had at home so far but we have every right to feel confident with the way we have been playing at home, and obviously there is also the Haberden (crowd) factor which gives us another few per cent. But we’ll be needing to put in an 80 minute performance against Esher.”

Bury Ladies host Long Eaton on Sunday (2pm) following a 72-0 win at Wymondham Wasps.