Division 1 10th Oct Review

The Wigan wagon keeps moving onwards as they remain unbeaten with another 3-2 win, and once again it is the experienced lower order of Julian Tomlinson, Paul McDonald and Ryan Atherton who are bringing home the bacon. This week saw them sneak through against the Welsh dragons of Wrexham. Owain Taylor and Rhys Evans are having a nice start to the season for Wrexham, but Wigan proved too strong at numbers 3, 4 and 5 for the Welsh outfit.

Cheetham Hill, Warrington and Liverpool all enjoyed 5-0 victories, each picking up the maximum 20 points to add to their title challenge. Local Liverpool brothers Lewis and Cory Harding are showing themselves to be a dynamic duo as they both recorded convincing wins against The Northern on Tuesday. 20 year-old Lewis is studying at Nottingham Uni and his younger brother Cory (17), is now involved with the England set-up as one of the top U19 players in the country. This recent national call up is giving Cory the opportunity to train with some top players, including the World's best junior Jonah Bryant, who also impressed on his Warrington debut by dispatching Bowdon's number 1 Matthew Gregory, with ease.

Lastly, Alderley Edge notched up a tasty 4-1 victory against The Northern 2nd Team. There were some close matches in this fixture, but non closer than at number 4, where James Pickles outlasted Northern coach, Jules Silvera Abbas. James, known for his willingness to run and to hit the ball hard (to put it mildly!), is a tough man to beat, and he demonstrated that perfectly last night. The two games he lost, he lost comfortably (perhaps having a tactical rest...?), but he always fought back to win the tightly contested following game. I've always liked Pickles, considering him to be an invaluable team player; he never knows when he's beaten!

Next week all teams will be looking to add as many points to their league tally before the one week international break / half term! The pick of the matches appear to be The Northern 1st Team vs Grove Park, and it will be interesting to see if Wigan's lower order can trouble the mighty Cheetham Hill.

Andy Whipp