Plymouth Albion chairman of rugby Graham Dawe is expecting a backlash from Bristol when they visit the Brickfields on Friday.

Bristol suffered a shock home defeat [33-35] by bottom-of-the-table Birmingham & Solihull last time out.

Dawe told BBC Spotlight: "They got their fingers burnt against Birmingham and I think it'll now be all hands on deck this weekend.

"It always seems to be the case that when they come here it's do or die."

The former England hooker added: "It'll be a great challenge for us to come up against a team that want to do that, and it'll be great for us to respond and see if we can match them."

Bristol have got some good players and they can turn it on Graham Dawe

Having narrowly lost out to Exeter on promotion from the Championship last season, Bristol have struggled so far during the current campaign, and sit 10th in the table, having only won twice.

However, Dawe was eager to assert that little should be read into the situation Bristol find themselves in

He said: "We want to target ourselves against the best teams and Bristol have got some good players - make no mistake about that.

"They have got some good players - and they can turn it on."

Albion will go into Friday's clash on the back of an impressive 36-22 win away at Moseley that propelled the Devon club up to eighth in the league.

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