Plymouth Albion chairman of rugby Graham Dawe says he anticipates a tough season in the Championship.

Albion, who finished eighth last term, start their campaign away at Bedford Blues on Saturday.

Dawe told BBC Spotlight: "I think it will be no different than most years, but we can't really predict it.

"Every year has been tough at Albion and we've enjoyed some great years in the past and I have no doubt we'll enjoy this season."

He added: "There's a lot of very ambitious players out there that want to play in the Premiership, and they're going to be going out all guns blazing."

Plymouth scraped into the play-offs last season and they were only able to win one of their six matches.

Somebody that is not well fancied is going to do well this year, and a team that is well fancied is going to struggle Graham Dawe

Albion also struggled off the pitch, with an appeal to raise £100,000 launched in April in order to stop the club from going into administration.

Consequently, Dawe is now working under a very tight budget in regard to his playing squad at the Brickfields.

He said: "We try not to work with excuses, we just work with what we've got and enjoy the season, we enjoy every day we come into work to train."

Bedford will provide a tough first outing for Dawe's men at Goldington Road, with the Blues holding a record of three wins out of four meetings last season.

"At this moment in time a lot of the teams are on a level playing field," said Dawe.

"But somebody that is not well fancied is going to do well this year, and a team that is well fancied is going to struggle."

Plymouth Albion: M Lee, B Mercer, C Mitchell, S Tuipulotu, J Coleman, A Davis, R Cushion, G Porter, G O'Meara, R Hopkins, T Skelding, T Hotson, S-M Stephen (capt), R Watts-Jones, A Carpenter.

Replacements: T Kessell, F McLoughlin, S Johns, M Manton, G Evans, D Collier, S Hocking, W Sprangle.

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