HAVING won the Jennings Ribblesdale League title twice in the past three years, Padiham are stuck in the bottom half of the table this time round.

It's not ideal, but skipper ANDY MCNICHOLAS insists things are still upbeat at The Arbories.

"Everything is fine but results have just not gone our way in the last few weeks. We lost our first couple of games and then won something like six on the trot in league and cup and things were going great.

But then we lost a tight game in the league at Cherry Tree and that seems to have been the story ever since. We were well beaten by Barnoldswick, when Mike Scothern bowled superbly to take a hat-trick, but it's been 10 or 15 runs, a couple of wickets and last over-jobs apart from that.

The pro Faheem (Fazal) has not been getting the runs that he was early in the season over the last couple of games which has been putting a bit of pressure on himself.

But he has great attitude and it's more to do with the amateur batting that's the problem, not getting enough runs on the board.

However last week against Settle we managed to get over 200, so hopefully we've turned the corner and we can start to put pressure on the other teams if we can keep doing that.

Tomorrow we are at Edenfield and we have had some success against them. They beat us in the first game of the season but I think it's the first time they have done that, if I'm not mistaken. They had a good start but like ourselves are having a rough patch so at least one of us should end that tomorrow.

It's not realistic to say that we can still get up to the top of the table, but we're still only halfway through and whoever does win it, I'd like to think we will have a say in the outcome.

Winning is a good habit, but you have also got to get used to it when things are not going your way. A lot of people coming to watch us expect to see us win, so it's a bit disappointing. But I think they can all see that we are trying and putting the effort in.

We are not letting our heads go down or giving up. We are all sticking together and there isn't any falling out which is important, because we have still got a long way to go this season. There are a couple of lads in the second team who will get their opportunities and if they grasp those that bodes well for next season.

In the past couple of seasons there's been just a handful of clubs fighting it out for the title but this year that's changed as a lot of teams have improved. Teams like Settle look a good outfit now and Baxenden and Blackburn Northern are also improved, which is good for the league in general, to be more competitive.

There are some crunch games coming up soon and it's unfortunate that we are not up there challenging. But I hope we have a better second half and can get into the top four. I don't think that's beyond us. It's just a case of getting some results together, hopefully starting tomorrow."