NORTHWICH, after repeating a now familiar trick of beating Winnington Park, hope next for their neighbours to help them out.

A 32-7 victory on Saturday at Burrows Hill makes Blacks favourites to finish inside the top three in South Lancs/Cheshire Division One for a second successive season.

With eight games left, they trail second-placed Liverpool St Helens by 16 points.

To keep alive slim hopes of playing again in a promotion play-off, they will likely need Winnington to beat LSH when they meet in April.

“Park could do us a favour,” said player-coach Sam Naylor.

“We’re going for that third place, and winning at the weekend puts us in a strong position to do that.

“It’s a fair distance to second, we know that, but we’ll try to keep on winning and see what happens.”

The men from Moss Farm have won four successive matches in all competitions, conceding 17 points while scoring 152.

As has become custom in recent seasons, they have gathered momentum during the season’s second half.

Northwich still have plenty to play for; a winner-takes-all clash at Blackburn in the RFU Intermediate Cup looms on Saturday week.

Naylor said: “We can improve, but the signs were good against Park.

“We came up with a game-plan, and stuck to it.

“It was huge to score so early in the game, and when we did again after 20 minutes we could see their players’ heads drop.

“That spurred us on.”

Shaun Underdown’s try for Winnington early in the second period prompted hopes of a recovery, but they were ended when Grayson Thyne crossed the line at the other end.

Naylor said: “We wanted to stop them getting a second in case that changed the game.

“We didn’t think it was job done at half time, and we were right because they scored next.

“We kept our discipline though, and didn’t let ourselves down by giving too many penalties away. Our fourth try put it out of their reach.”