WALSHAW captain Mikey Watt refused to be too downbeat after his side failed to secure a place in the top six of the Bolton Association following an injury-hit second half to the campaign.

The penultimate weekend of the regular season saw three games, including Bury’s home fixture against Winton, lost to the rain and the remaining six matches were all played with reduced overs.

Atherton claimed a top six spot with a shock victory against leaders Edgworth, and both will join Flixton, Bury and Lostock in the top section. Second-placed Swinton Moorside ensured the Sycamore Road outfit can do no better than finish seventh after recording a convincing win over them at the Graham Matthews ground.

Walshaw, who had lost only three of their opening 12 league games, have now slumped to four consecutive defeats in recent weeks, with skipper Watt left to rue a number of key absentees.

The club’s overseas player Dawayne Sealey cut his season short last month after failing to recover from injury, Steven Holt was on holiday last week, while Darron Foy, Danny Hornby and opening batsman Jack McClung have all been sidelined with knocks.

“Obviously it’s disappointing to miss out on the top six, he said.

“But we’ve not been playing poor cricket; we’ve just been really unlucky with injuries.

“Unfortunately our pro Dawayne aggravated an old shoulder injury and although we stuck with him for a few weeks, he just couldn’t recover so we made the mutual decision to send him home to get proper treatment.

“It means We’ve had different players coming in every week so we just can’t get any consistency going.

“We would have been challenging for the title had it not been for the injury crisis.”

Matt Norvall (45), Jonathan Herreran (43) and Dave Flatley (40) were all in the runs as Swinton posted 187-8 from their reduced 26 overs on Saturday.

Gavin Nicholl (3-39) was the pick of the Walshaw bowlers.

Tom Murphy top-scored with 24 in reply but Walshaw were bowled out for 117 as Raffey Khan (3-21) inflicted the most damage.

Despite the 70-run defeat, Watt was delighted with the club’s youngsters who have made the step up to senior cricket.

“The main thing is we’ve got such strong junior, second and third teams with lads coming in and doing a great job.

“Chris Horner has come in as opening bat and got a couple of 30s in recent games and Liam Greer has also impressed.”

“Our under-14s have won the treble this season and we have 14 year olds who are not just playing for the second team, they are winning games for them.”