BERRY Hill have had some help from a Gloucester hero for their South West Counties Intermediate Cup trip to St Austell on Saturday.
Hill are just three wins from reaching a Twickenham showpiece final but will have their work cut for the long journey to Cornwall to face the Western Counties West leaders.
Berry Hill secretary Lee Osborne has therefore called on old Cherry and Whites team-mate Dave Sims for advice about their opposition, who are in the same division as Sims' Wellington side.
Osborne said: "I've done a little bit of homework on them because I rang Dave Sims up a couple of weeks ago.
"He coaches Wellington in their league so I had a chat to him to find out what they're about.
"I've had a bit of inside knowledge about them but that was only a phone call and that's about as much as we know about them.
"Their league will be as competitive as our league, so any side that is top of Western Counties West are going to be a decent side.
"Dave pointed out where their strengths are and their passages of play and how they play and what they come up with.
"Apart from that, that was all I can really say, it might take any surprise element out of it for our players."
St Austell go into the tie with 15 wins in 18 league games but have wobbled recently after losing their last two fixtures in a row.
The Cornishmen will be sharper after their matches were not affected by the recent snow, unlike Berry Hill who have not played in three weeks.
Hill are 12th out of 14 teams in Western Counties North, having won just five times so far this season.
But Osborne is twice as determined to come back with a win after suffering so many disappointments down there himself as a player.
"Any Cornish team away is tough to beat," he added.
"I played on their ground a long, long time ago, over 20 odd years ago, and it must have been around 1990/91.
"We actually opened their ground with a match between Gloucestershire and Cornwall at the start of the season.
"We still didn't win, we never win in Cornwall, and I've never beaten Cornwall for the county.
"We always had to play them away and never won there, so I've played in various different guises down there. That's how hard I know it is.
"Whenever you win in Cornwall it's a very difficult thing to do."
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