Last updated at 12:06, Friday, 15 June 2012

Wigton will host a rejuvenated Workington in the Higson Cup second round on Sunday.

Workington beat favourites Furness to win the final last year and, after showing signs of returning to their old form of late, will not easily relinquish their grip on the cup.

“If we retain it, that would be great,” said skipper Kristian Moffatt. “But there are definitely no guarantees and there are plenty of other good teams knocking about.

“We were poor early on and not really playing very well. We had a few missing but were not really performing as we should have.

“Over the last three or four weeks we have picked up and not lost a game for a while. Things are going in the right direction.”

In last year’s showpiece, the skipper shared in a third wicket stand of 152 with brother Callum, who became the first amateur to score a century in the final, Kristian finishing unbeaten on 83. And the pair were again in the runs last weekend, Kristian smashing 137 in the massive 212-run victory over bottom club Kirkby – their second victory of the league season – his brother adding 63.

Callum, who was second leading amateur in the Premier Division batting averages last term, missed the first six weeks of the season after breaking his leg playing RU for Workington Zebras.

Kristian also missed a couple of weeks and leading prospect Andrew Ireland joined Durham Academy.

“We have used 24/25 players already, which is a lot, but we are lucky as all the lads are pretty decent. That’s not an excuse, but we have been a bit more settled over the last few weeks,” the captain added.

“It was just important that we got a win against Kirkby. We need to be beating teams like that at the bottom.

“It will be hard to get back up top but there are no real stand-out teams. Cockermouth, Furness and Millom seem to be the main three.

“We will take it week-by-week and see how we get on. If we push in to the top three or four over the next few weeks I’ll be happy with that. Our start left us with a lot of work to do.”

Workington have now moved in to mid-table and have a great chance to make further progress tomorrow at the expense of another struggling side Lindal Moor.

First published at 11:30, Friday, 15 June 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk