The big match-up this week was Wigan against defending champions Warrington. Wigan is always a pleasant place to go to. Their die-hard supporters always cram themselves into every possible crevice in order to watch world class squash, and there was plenty of that on display with 3 of the best players on the planet turning out for their clubs.

Wigan had their strongest line-up of the season as Patrick Rooney flew in to prop up their order. The night before Pat had claimed the biggest tournament win of his career as he beat German Raphae Kandra in the final of the Czech Open - big congrats to him. 5's and 3's went on first. I was required to have one last outing of the season and was not feeling confident against the quality Paul McDonald. Paul raced through the first game and was quickly 9-4 up in the second. I managed to balance myself enough to play a few decent shots, and then The Big Mac appeared to self-destruct slightly as he allowed me to steal that game, and then win the next two, helped by his errors. I feel I won this match purely based on bravado and reputation! Lewis Doughty was dominating Ben Hetherington on the adjacent court, before the tall, likable Cumbrian pushed himself in-front of the T, literally throwing himself forward to volley every shot in a last ditch attempt to unsettle Lewis. It worked as he won the 3rd game, but alas, he had expended too much energy as Dangerous Doughty calmly controlled the 4th game.

Ollie Hudson vs Julian Tomlinson was always going to be close. Duracell Bunny Julian was looking awesome at 3-0 in the first game, with a triple bagel on the cards, but Ollie rallied to stay with the Wigan Warrior, and did just enough to win the first game. Julian was hampered slightly in some rallies with a re-occurring hip issue, and then other rallies he seemed to be moving freely. Ollie kept his concentration to take the second game, before Julian called it a day in the third. It's almost a year since Ollie tore his achilles and he's already playing remarkably well. Next on court was ex-World No.1 James Willstrop, against an equally as tall young New Zealander, Mason Smales. Mason now lives and trains at Pontefract under the tutelage of James, so this had the potential to be close between the two big footed blokes. Even though James is hardly playing at the moment, he's an absolute class act. His squash is so good, Mason was simply stuck behind his coach, watching in awe as James wowed the crowd with delightful drop shots, perfectly controlled drives and the occasional "triple fan shot". Warrington finished off a fine 5-0 victory when Joel Makin beat Pat Rooney. Pat attacked himself to a 6-1 lead, but was pegged back with some excellent squash from Joel. Pat didn't appear to be too fatigued from but was understandably slightly off his best, and so Joel dominated to claim the 3-0 win.

Bowdon are continuing their march up the table after a slow start, as they beat City Of Manchester, dashing dreams of back-to-back wins for the Manchester team. It was a night of three 3-2's though. Badger Billson the only loss for Bowdon, eventually succumbing to the 'half-his-age' Egyptian, Adam El Shazly. Chales Keeble had a great win against Mutahir Ali Shah in a 'battle of the juniors', while the other five game epic was at number 4, as Matt Lowery slow-balled himself to victory. In last weeks write-up I speculated when Super Hero Nick Murrills would grace the court again, we didn't have to wait too long as he returned for another unorthodox 3-0 win this week. What a man!

Super-signing Will Salter topped the order for Grove Park for the second time this season, and claimed another ruthless 3-0 win. Ky Hibberd and Mike Potter played out a fascinating 3-2, with Ky just edging it, while the hard-hitting James Pickles defeated Ky's twin brother Morgan, to claim Alderley's only win of the night.

Both Wrexham and Liverpool were without their regular number 1's, as Owain and Lwamba were in France for a PSA tournament. Liverpool's middle order was far too strong for Wrexham though, as once again the Harding boys, Lewis and Cory helped out their team with convincing wins. Small shout out to the elder Lewis, who turns 21 on Friday!

Finally, Cheetham Hill continued their winning ways with a straightforward win against strugglers Northern 2. However, Kuwaiti Bader 'The Catherine Wheel' Almaghrebi, who can be scarily fast and ferocious at times, claimed the only win for The Northern when he beat Jordan Hardwick 3-2, in which I can only imagine was a cracker of a match, with fireworks going off in every direction.

As it stands, Warrington and Cheetham hold the top two spots, while Liverpool, Grove Park and Wigan are very close to one-another at 3,4 and 5, but Wigan have played both the top two teams. The two Northern teams and City Of Manchester currently occupy the bottom 3 places.