Nat Fairhurst, The Wigan Wonder, continued his unbeaten season, but only just. He beat The Northern's Big Man, Luis North 11-9 in the fifth. After earning a 2-1 lead, Nat must have been feeling pretty nervous when Luis stormed back to win the fourth game 11-2. Out of his 16 wins this season, 11 of those have been 3-0, with only one previous match going the distance, so he was entering somewhat unchartered territory by Luis forcing a fifth game. Never one to panic though, long-legged Nat kept his calm for an impressive victory for his team. Talking of Big guys, kiwi Mason Smales had a great win at the number 1 string match, beating Ali Khawas 3-0. Wigan notched up 17 team points to keep them in the hunt for 3rd place.

Third placed Grove Park, beat 4th placed Bowdon 3-2. Bowdon's middle order continue to impress, with Pete Billson and Daniel Ince winning for Bowdon, but Grove Park were far too strong at the top of the order with New Zealanders Temwa Chileshe and Joel Arscott both winning 3-0. Grove Stalwart, Ky Hibberd also won for the home sdie, making sure Grove collected the 5 bonus points for winning the match.

Warrington had a comfortable night at Wrexham. Josh Davies impressed for the Welsh side, with a superb performance to beat Ollie Hudson. Josh loves to play fast and dominate the middle of the court, and he did that perfectly, hitting countless volley drop winners throughout the match. Also in the match, we had England's best youngster, 18-year old Jonah Bryant, vs Welsh 19-year-old Olympic prospect, Rhys Evans. The match was pretty fast and furious, but in the end Jonah's retrieval skills in-particular proved superior, as the younger Englishman won 3-0.

Liverpool have been struggling of late, and they lost out to Alderley Edge, but the returning Connor Sheen and the ever-reliable Cory Harding put in superb performances to both win, but Alderley still proved too strong with wins at 1, 4 and 5. Mike Potter especially looked good against the powerful Adam Pritchard. After years and years of watching Pickles smack the ball at 1000mph, playing a hard-hitting opponent is certainly not intimidating to someone like Mike.

The final match saw The Northen beat strugglers City Of Manchester. The Northern were massively bolstered by having the services of Egyptian Moustafa ElSirty. Moustafa won 3-0 at No.1, while Matt Wagg and university student Josh Morris also won for The Northern. Ray Nevin claimed his first win of the season for City Of Manchester. The flamboyant coach has struggled playing at No.3 in the first division, but delighted all that know him with a great win against Matt Urquhart-Proctor.

Warrington hold a 6 point lead over Cheetham Hill at the top of the table. Grove Park have a 20 point cushion in third place, but I'm sure Wigan will feel they can catch them, especially if Mason Smales can continue in his winning ways.

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Andy Whipp