Fylde welcome Loughborough Students to the Woodlands on Saturday - kick off 3pm - for what is likely to be one of the most attractive games of the season.

Following their moderate start to the 2008/9 campaign, the home side will be very anxious for a convincing win if they are to fulfil many pundits' view of them as a leading promotion candidate in National Three (North).

Loughborough University is an elite centre for sport and has always produced great rugby players under its previous manifestation as Loughborough College.

Indeed, Fylde had a long standing fixture with the students which was a casualty of the introduction of league rugby in the mid-1990s.

The last game between the clubs was almost 17 years ago, on 5th October 1991, when Fylde travelled to Leicestershire and won by 34-18. Fylde's try scorers that day included winger Jim Muir(2), flanker John Nicholson (2) and the Russell brothers, Gareth and Andy.

Apart from the British Universities competition which includes the other major rugby playing institutions, Loughborough decided to enter the RFU league system a few years ago.

Given that they attract some of the very best young rugby talent in the UK then it's hardly surprising that they have worked their way from regional competitions up to the national leagues.

What is more astonishing - given the nature of student terms, the three-year turnover of student cohorts, the fact that unlike almost every club in N3N they don't pay players, and the solid nine months length of the season - was their ability to maintain a successful team in these leagues each season.

But somehow they manage it, unlike any other UK university team, and have done so in style.

But the Students have a number of great advantages.

They have superb facilities, access to some of the very best coaching around and a back-up team of physiologists, nutritionists, conditioning coaches, and, most importantly, an unsurpassed elite sporting culture.

They also have a squad of more or less full-time players, give or take a little studying at the periphery!.

So National Three (North) clubs will come across a squad of young players in great physical shape and many with the natural talent to go to the top of the professional game.

Loughborough has always had the reputation for playing an open, fast and entertaining style and their national league squad maintains this tradition.

But no one should get the impression that this is a team of carefree students, tactically naive, who just want to play a Corinthian kind of 'devil may care' rugby.

Under lead coach Dave Morris, their squad includes a number of players who've already tasted the heat of battle in professional rugby so there's little doubt that they're streetwise.

Their squad includes a very quick backline featuring fullback Peter Clarke (ex-Bedford), wingers Mike Coady (England Students) and Simon Lilley (Hull Ionians), former Henley centre Nathan Lambden and the very influential pairing of fly-half Paul Trendell (ex-Westcombe Park) and scrum-half Henry Pyrgos (Northampton Saints Academy).

Their pack features Plymouth Albion prop Tom Hobbs, Ireland U'19 no 8 Daniel Falvey, outstanding lock Simon Pitfield (England U'19s, England Students & Northampton Saints 'A' team) and flankers Phil Burgess (Harlequins 'A') and Jamie Cullen (Wales U'20s & Cardiff Blues Development squad).

Neither Fylde nor any other N3N club should believe that the route to victory will be roughing up these youngsters and grinding out a win.

If the new Experimental Law Variations have shown anything in the first few weeks of their use then it's that we now have a more furious, helter skelter kind of rugby which is very difficult to close down into a grim forwards' battle, at least on the dry pitches of early season.

The Students' first few weeks of national league competition was always likely to be difficult as their squad didn't get together until mid-August and they didn't have their 'freshers', the 2008/9 intake, available.

They lost their first game at home to Caldy, narrowly (14-22), and similarly went down in a high scoring game at Nuneaton (30-41).

But on Saturday they earned their first win by overcoming last season's league runners-up, Darlington Mowden Park, at home in a tight 19-17 affair.

With this taste of blood there's little doubt that they'll be really up for a trip to the famous Woodlands ground to take on Fylde.

Fylde will check on injuries to fullback Mike Waywell, flanker Dave Wilks and prop Sam Simpson.