RAILWAY Hotel Lostock moved into second place in the Ovalworld Super League when they took maximum points from their visit to Sunnybank Helmshore.

Although the Helmshore team are playing nowhere near the standard they set three years ago when they won the division, they remain a formidable team especially on home turf.

In fact, they rarely tasted defeat or a share of the spoils at home and a 6-0 clean sweep reverse was unheard of, or even contemplated before now.

Obviously they considered title hopes were gone for this year and so they have, but they are good enough to press for the championship in future.

Having said that, let's take nothing away from the Lostock team who won the match as emphatically as the score suggests.

Indeed, all the team won without ever being seriously challenged and had points to spare when they weighed in for victory.

Tommy Fishwick who has now put together an impressive run of five wins opened the account for Railway with a solid 21-14 score.

Dave Barnish who now has eight wins to his credit and John Neville, now with four on the run, both won comfortably by the same 21-12 margin to make it 3-0 at half time. After the break it was a similar miserable story for the homesters who conceded all three games without much resistance.

Captain David Hughes who sacrificed his own place in the side all too often, had a splendid win 21-13 along with Barry Sutton who returned the same margin.

Anchor man Andrew Harley completed the rout when he notched his fifth win from the last six starts, 21-15.

There's no doubt this result has set alight the race for the title and given Lostock a great opportunity to take the coveted title in their first year back in the Super League.

Remembering Frenchwood have a match in hand makes the championship likely to be a four-horse race.

Pre-season favourites St Annes remain in the van in top place where they have been since early May.

But they now look at least a little vulnerable for the first time since then.

No doubt current champions Alexandra will not give up without a fight, and for them the visit of St Annes in two weeks is absolutely vital.

The same could be said for Railway who visit the league leaders in four weeks.

Frenchwood resume fixtures with a home crunch match with Lostock this weekend which all adds up to an exciting run in to the league programme which reaches its climax early in September.

Fixtures for Sunday: Frenchwood v Lostock; Ramblers v St Annes; Stacksteads v Bamber Bridge; Sunnybank v Ighten Mount; Witton v Alexandra.

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