By Matt Lawton
September 17 2007

Although the pre-season harboured pretensions of a potential top-half finish for RMI, they find themselves in the familiar position of playing in their first ‘six-pointer’ of the season on Tuesday evening when basement side Hucknall Town visit Hilton Park for a vital encounter between the sides that currently occupy the bottom two positions of the Blue Square North table. After a bright start to the season that brought an opening day draw with Hinckley United and an impressive 2-1 victory in the rain at Barrow, their season has faltered somewhat with Saturday's 3-1 loss at Worcester City being the fifth in succession since a 1-1 draw at Redditch.

Visitors Hucknall, meanwhile, have endured a torrid start to the season and indeed picked up only their first point of the season on Saturday afternoon when an equaliser in the final fifteen minutes of action earned a point against Hinckley, play-off finalists of last season.

The two previous Conference North visits of Hucknall to Hilton Park have both produced terrific encounters, with two Scott Willis goals crowning a 2-1 victory in December 2005, while last season's encounter brought a memorable 4-3 Leigh win, thanks largely to a Mark Jackson hat-trick.

Having made his return to the side at Worcester on Saturday after being left out of the previous week's starting eleven against Southport, ex-Preston striker Jackson will be looking to replicate such outstanding form as he hopes to cement a regular place in his side's starting line-up.

Just as last season's 3-1 win in the away fixture to Hucknall brought a new sense of purpose to RMI's season, a win on Tuesday evening will take them firmly away from the dreaded grasp of the relegation zone - kick off at Hilton Park is at 7:45pm