Sunday's Carrow Road showdown between Norwich City and Ipswich Town is not the only big derby match to look forward to this weekend.

Norwich and Ipswich are also going head-to-head on the rugby field, with the London Two North East rivals doing battle at Humber Doucy Lane on Saturday (3pm).

Like their football counterparts Norwich will be going into the match in good heart following an excellent 8-5 win at higher ranked Diss in the Norfolk Senior Cup semi-finals last weekend.

Director of rugby David Everitt said: 'Following the cup win the players and coaches should be confident against an improving Ipswich side, but the game must not be taken lightly.

'Sitting comfortably in mid-table they will have the freedom to express themselves and we have only once beaten a side coached by Nick Greenhall, which was the early home fixture against Ipswich when he had only just taken over.'

He continued: 'There are a few more injury worries and some players will have had extensive fitness tests at training before selection is finalised. Once again we showed that we have good strength the depth of our squad and the players that stepped up from the Lions did us proud.'

Dave Micklethwaite is still out for Norwich and Matt Selby and Conan Hoey may well be rested but Mike Lawton should be available.

Coach Jonny O'Brien was proud of his team's efforts at Mackenders.

'It was a huge team effort to beat Diss in challenging conditions,' he said. 'I was so proud of the boys. especially as we played with 14 players for 30 minutes due to yellow cards for technical offences. We now have the challenge of following up this performance against Ipswich. If we show the same energy levels and ball retention we should get the result we want.'

Meanwhile Fakenham face arguably their biggest match of the season so far on Saturday. They are at home to Ipswich YM in a match that pits first against second in the Eastern Counties Shield, which features the six leading teams in the three regional leagues.

Fakenham won all their games to win the northern section while Ipswich won 13 out of 14 games to take the south honours.