Netherfield skipper Marc Brown wants his side to shake off their downcast demeanour and ensure the season finishes on a high note.

The Parkside Road club currently languish in tenth-place after last Saturday’s draw with Barrow, with Netherfield taking only two points from the clash.

And ahead of this weekend’s games with bottom two Preston and Lancashire Colts, Brown is targeting back-to-back victories to improve their league standing.

“We’d like to win both our remaining games, finish the season well and get some positive feeling around the place going into the winter break,” he said.

“We have just gone a little bit stale at the moment and I know I’m making an excuse but a lot of it has come since we lost that game against Blackpool in disappointing circumstances.

“Everything has gone flat but we don’t want to be finishing as low as we currently are so we need to win the last two games to get into mid-table and I’m very confident we can do that.”

Netherfield batted out their allocation against Barrow to deny the league leaders victory, in the process ensuring the race for the title goes down to the wire.

Despite this, Brown conceded his batting line-up failed to fire away from home once again, a problem he feels has dogged his team all summer.

“The score Barrow put on the board was probably about par but we just didn’t perform with the bat,” he added.

“We failed to apply ourselves and haven’t done so all season on our travels so that is certainly something to look at ahead of next season.

“We need to make sure we bat consistently away from home and make better use of the overs at our disposal.”

Across town, captain Stu Parkin believes the performance of his side in the draw at Leyland is further proof of Kendal’s revival in fortunes.

The Shap Road club fell tantalisingly short of beating Leyland in a closely-fought encounter, with the decision to dismiss sub-pro Pieter Malan proving decisive.

“It goes to show how far we have come as a team, it’s just a shame this upturn of form has come towards the backend of the season and not at the start,” he said.

“But it was a pleasing all-round performance and we feel we had the better of things for large parts – it was a game we probably should have won.

“We were pro-actively looking for the win as Leyland put all fielders out on the boundary fence which of course made the run-chase increasingly difficult.

“The turning point was probably the decision to give Pieter Malan out when he was well-set on 72, the umpire got it wrong and apologised after the game, but these things happen.”

Parkin is keen for his side to finish their campaign with a bang as Kendal head to Morecambe for the summer’s finale.

The Woodhill Lane outfit are chasing fourth-place and a place in next season’s Lancashire Cup, with Parkin challenging his side to rise to the occasion and crash the party.

“It will be an interesting game as Morecambe are still vying for fourth-place and we don’t want to drop from our position now,” he added.

“If we can maintain are current position, we believe that would be testament to the good second-half of the season we’ve had and just rewards for our efforts in that time.”

Teams:

Netherifeld v Preston (Saturday)

Marc Brown (Captain), John Huck, Ben Barrow, Chris Parry, Greg Hall, Brad Earl, Scott Clement, Craig Walmsley, Nathan Chambers, Stuart Nixon, Chris Williams (Professional)

Morecambe v Kendal (Saturday)

Stu Parkin (Captain), Ryan Nelson, Darren Moore, Terry Hunte, Jack White, Gary Baker, Nick Lewthwaite, Adam Cowperthwaite, Chris Miller, Darren Braithwaite, Brad Moses (Professional)

Netherfield v Lancashire Colts (Sunday)

Marc Brown (Captain), John Huck, Ben Barrow, Chris Parry, Greg Hall, Brad Earl, Scott Clement, Craig Walmsley, Nathan Chambers, Stuart Nixon, Saliya Saman (Professional)