Bury St Edmunds head coach Jacob Ford wants his side to enjoy their last match at the Greene King IPA Haberden this season

Bury St Edmunds head coach Jacob Ford wants his side to enjoy playing at the Greene King IPA Haberden for the final time together as they prepare to host 10th-placed Guernsey tomorrow (1.30pm).

The Wolfpack, who are currently sixth in the National League 2 East standings, head into their penultimate fixture of the season off the back of a 29-25 defeat to mid-table Canterbury on Saturday.

But Bury have enjoyed playing at the Haberden this campaign, winning eight of their 13 matches, and they first tasted defeat at home on January 27.

“It’s massively important to not only get a win at home again for everyone involved, but also for the lads that are moving on at the end of the year to have one last memory of their time at Bury,” said Ford.

“That’s what we’re playing for in these last two games. This group of players won’t be together again, it’s the case at the end of each season, so we’re going to make sure we enjoy these last two games together.”

Despite their defeat at the weekend, Ford was incredibly pleased with his side’s effort at Canterbury, but admitted missed one-on-one tackles and not being clinical enough cost Bury.

They fell 17-10 down at the break, after tries from Kodie Drury-Hawkins and Ben Cooper, and although Matthew Bursey, Ben Penfold and Harry Simpson crossed the whitewash in the second half, a surge from the hosts late on killed the visitors off.

In the reverse fixture against this weekend’s opponents, Guernsey, in December, Bury ran out 40-10 winners. Ford stated his side ‘were in a really different place back then’ as they were building what turned out to be a 10-game unbeaten run. They won just one of the nine matches that followed.

“We’re incredibly proud of the position we were in in January. Competing before Christmas with things going against us, red cards, yellow cards and beating the top three times, I was incredibly proud of that effort,” said Ford.

“I was also really proud of the group getting out of their losing run we were in. It could’ve kept going, we could’ve thrown in the towel, but I think the effort we showed at Canterbury, the result we showed against Westcombe Park and the effort at Barnes away showed we were turning a corner.

“The lads were digging their way out of the hole that we found ourselves in.

“The lads that are going to be involved within the squad next year will have tremendous experiences and learnings from this year.”