AS WE approach the halfway stage in the season it seems a good time to talk about the new rules.

I must say I'm a big fan of the changes, especially after the league got them sadly wrong last year.

It's great to get back to a straight win or lose scenario but I still think they've slipped up a bit when it comes to bonus points.

A team can get absolutely annihilated like Church were against Colne recently and they can still pick up a raft of bonus points.

I know what the league were trying to do but teams shouldn't be rewarded for playing badly.

So they still need a bit of fine tuning over the winter and I'm sure that will happen.

As for ourselves, I'm pleased with the start we've made.

Defending a championship is always difficult but we've only lost two games so far and overall I'm pretty happy with how we are playing.

Last year we had a game-plan which worked for us and we've just been trying to carry that on again this time.

We try to bowl tight. Roger Harper obviously bowls a lot of overs for us so it's up to the rest of us to back him up.

And with the strength we have in our batting, I'm always confident we can get the runs.

The league itself is starting to look a bit like a three-horse race between ourselves, Haslingden and East Lancs.

I think Hassy are our main rivals because they're so tough to beat. Tomorrow's game between us is massive and could have a major bearing on the destiny of the championship.

But don't rule out East Lancs because they have done very well this season, especially after losing some key players at the end of last season.

And in Claude Henderson they've got a great pro who has done brilliantly considering this is his first taste of Lancashire League cricket.

But a couple of other sides, like Colne, are still capable of forcing themselves into the reckoning.

They've got a top pro in Joe Scuderi, they're on a great run at the moment and it would be nice to see them beat Hassy today in the semi-finals of the Worsley Cup.

And talking of top pros, they don't come much better than Roger Harper.

I think the term 'professional' is often mis-used but in Roger I think we've got the most professional professional in the league.

He's 100 per cent committed to winning every game he plays for us and he just seems to have this aura which inspires everyone else around him.

He makes my job easy as a captain, but he's also a really bubbly character in the dressing room - but then he needs to be because our dressing room is always a lively place.

If he ever goes on to manage the West Indies team we'll all be able to look back in the future and say we played with this guy.

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