1ST DIVISION REVIEW

Date: 3rd September 2010

Ack. to Liverpool Daily Post

Rainhill skipper Mike Rotherham insists his team have already achieved their main goal this season regardless of whether they win promotion to the ECB Premier League. The Recreation Ground side go into tomorrow's First Division home match against relegation-threatened Maghull just four points behind second-placed Rainford, but Rotherham has mixed feelings about the prospects of going up.

"I think we'd survive in the Premier League but I don't think we'd be competing in the part of the league where we'd want to be," he said. "Our aim at the start of the season was to finish in the top six and we've already achieved that. We're not now going to big ourselves up and make stupid predictions which just put pressure on us "We certainly won't be disappointed if we don't finish in the top two this year. It's been a great season and I think other teams in the league thought that we would finish nearer the bottom than the top, so I think we've already surprised a few people."

Rainhill's achievement has been rooted in the spin of Mansoor Ahmed, who has already taken 73 wickets this season, but Rotherham believes that there is a new generation of cricketers at the club who might benefit from another summer in the second tier of the Bridging Finance Solutions Liverpool Competition. "Ben Edmondson and Phil Veacock are the two stand out players but it's also been nice for me to get back into the runs," he said. "That said, the younger players are not yet at the level which will allow them to cope comfortably with Premier League cricket. By the end of next season I would hope that they will be. "We've had a strong eleven this year without necessarily having a strong squad."

At the top of the First Division, Leigh will clinch promotion if they beat Formby at Cricket Path, while second-placed Rainford visit Fleetwood Hesketh. The Sea Cop club know they need at least one more win to pile the relegation pressure on neighbours Southport and Birkdale.