With a perfect seven from seven bonus point wins leaving Hartpury perched proudly at the summit of National League One, John Barnes' men have certainly sounded an early salvo to their promotion rivals.

But while, on paper, Hartpury look sound favourites for this Saturday's match-up with Ampthill, director of rugby Barnes knows the Bedfordshire side are capable of turning over anyone on the day, as they showed when they toppled Birmingham-Moseley - current League One runners-up - earlier this term.

And while their most recent outing saw them go down 31-17 at home to Blackheath - the team Hartpury defeated 34-0 in their league opener - an impressive record of five wins from seven games, including three four-try bonus points, means they are currently lying fifth in the table. And with Hartpury having suffered a shock 24-18 defeat at Ampthill's Dillingham Park last term, Barnes is insistent his team will be taking nothing for granted.

"This could potentially be the trickiest game we've faced so far this season if Ampthill put in a performance we know they are capable of," said Barnes.

"Some of their results have shown just what a threat they can be and we've had some good games against them in the last few years. They are a well coached, experienced side with a lot of former professional players, especially in their pack. We know we will have to be at our best."

Hartpury will take comfort from the fact that they comfortable reversed the result in Bedfordshire on home soil last season, beating Ampthill 37-10 at home, and they go into this weekend's clash on the back of an excellent 47-5 win at Blaydon.

Barnes added: "We played some really good attacking rugby at Blaydon and we could have scored more than the eight tries we did. We missed a fair few kicks too.

"Our build-up was disrupted when our fly-half, Jacob Perry, didn't make it through the warm-up, having injured his hamstring in the Hull Ionians game the previous week. That meant we had Jamie Forrester at 10, who had never played there before.

"It meant we left a few points out there but we'd have taken seven bonus point wins from the first seven games when we started the season!"

Perry will face a fitness test this Friday, along with full-back Mike Wilcox, who is struggling with an injured hip.