DESPITE leading a young squad of players, Netherfield skipper Marc Brown insists the time has come for his side’s senior personnel to stand tall and deliver.

The Parkside Road club followed a thrashing of Kendal in the TWP Twenty20 competition with two disappointing defeats to Blackpool in the league and then Kendal in the Bluefin County Cup.

Dismissed for just 116 and 109 in those respective clashes, Brown accepts his charges are unlikely to win many matches while setting victory targets in this range.

“Senior players who have performed well in the past need to take it upon themselves now to stand up,” he said.

“I’m 26 and one of the oldest players in the team which goes to show how young and inexperienced we are, although that should not be used as an excuse.

“It’s frustrating from my point of view as we have some talented players in our team but we just aren’t showing that at present.

“It’s all about the ones that have been there and done it in competitions previously to stand up and produce some individual performances.

“That’s all we can do, strive for a higher level of consistency and try and graft and compete each week so improvements are seen in our performances.”

Despite posting relatively low scores, Brown felt there were opportunities for Netherfield to turn the tide in both their weekend defeats, with Blackpool at 23-4 at one stage and Kendal 66-4.

And while the skipper holds Saturday’s opponents Barrow in high regard, Brown hopes his Netherfield charges can produce a repeat of last season and ignite their Northern League summer.

“We had half a chance against Blackpool when a very difficult chance was dropped at first slip, with Stephen Twist taking the game away from us,” he added.

“And on Sunday, if we had got Terry Hunte out we would probably have fancied ourselves to win, although only one defeat in seven years to our derby rivals is quite an achievement.

“I would say Barrow are in the top four teams in the league although have produced indifferent results lately. They were beaten by Kendal who rely heavily on one individual with the bat and he came off.

“It will be a challenging fixture but hopefully at home, where we’ve played some of our best cricket, we can turn it on and reproduce last season’s performance against Barrow.”

Netherfield Team:

Netherfield v Barrow (Saturday): Marc Brown (c), Ben Barrow, Ben Phillips, John Huck, Saliya Saman, Joe Atkinson, Brad Earl, Brendan Herron, Mark Clarkson, Nathan Chambers, Stuart Nixon