IN the summer, every Winnington player scribbled on a piece of paper what they wanted to achieve this season.

After finishing in the table’s bottom half in each of the past three years, most of them decided to aim high.

Park have reached the campaign’s halfway mark placed third in South Lancs/Cheshire Division One, setting them on course to improve on fourth position in 2011.

“Most of the lads wrote ‘top four’ when asked,” said chairman Brian Concannon.

“If you’d have offered us that before the first game, we’d have been happy.

“The boys are on a high, and rightly so.”

The Burrows Hill outfit reached the winter break buoyed by beating second-placed Liverpool St Helens.

That victory was all the sweeter for following a sequence of three successive defeats, including an exit from the Cheshire RFU Vase, the previous month.

Concannon told the Guardian a surprise 33-13 reverse at Sefton had been a wake-up call.

“In all of the years I served as first-team manager I had no cause to go into the dressing room after a game,” he said.

“But the players got the hairdryer treatment that day.

“It was a reminder that we needed to refocus, or we’d put at risk everything we’d worked so hard to achieve up to that point.”

He said a shift in attitude has been key to transforming Park’s fortunes on the pitch after back-to-back eight-place finishes in the previous two seasons.

They were 11th in 2012.

Concannon said: “We’ve learned how to win ugly.

“The mentality is different; we keep going until the final whistle and have pulled out some unlikely victories from losing positions as a result.

“I think it’s a reflection of the mood around the club, which is as close-knit as it’s been for a while. The first team’s togetherness embodies that.

“We’re excited now to find out how far we can go.

“We’ve created the conditions for the players to succeed; the training and coaching they have is first class, and to a man they’ve bought into it.

“It’s a big step up to the next level, but we’ve given ourselves a chance.”

Park return to action at seventh-placed Glossop, opponents they defeated 37-17 earlier this season, on Saturday, kick off 2.15pm.