NEIL BONNAR'S round-up of Sunday's Redmayne Bentley Bolton Association

ATHERTON refuse to give up the fight for the Association title.

They closed the gap by six points to leave champions Walshaw 24 clear at the top after a weekend ravaged by the weather.

As Walshaw were picking up the minimum six points from a brief day's work against Clifton, Atherton picked up an extra six thanks to the rain being a little more kind in their game against Blackrod.

With more than 24 second innings overs being bowled the bonus points system kicked in for the second place side who opened with 150-9 then saw Blackrod reply with 115-7 before the rain set in.

Paul Walsh scored 46, Chris Partington 25 and Rob Clews 23 for Atherton while Terry Southworth and Dave Morris were in form with the ball sharing all nine wickets, Southworth shading the honours with five.

His son Jack scored 39 during the reply with Chris Sanderson adding 30 and Paul Walsh enjoyed an eventful four overs in which he took three wickets for just seven runs.

Only three games were completed - mind you that was three more than on Saturday - with Little Hulton and Spring View tasting victory.

The big excitement was at Lostock where Spring View hit the winning run from the very last ball.

Ian Murphy took 5-45 as the home side opened with 147 all out, pro Steven Twist scoring 43 and Phil Knowles 41.

A team effort took View to within two runs of victory with four wickets to spare and one over to go.

Their anxiety heightened when they failed to score off the first ball then lost two wickets off the second and third balls. They failed again off the fourth ball and scrambled a single off the penultimate ball leaving then needing one to win from the last ball.

Howard Bamber duly obliged leaving him 29 not out while Martin James scored 39 and Steven Williams 26.

In the third completed game, Darcy Lever held out for a draw at Standish.

The home side declared on 162-6 off 40 overs and in Darcy's reply of 130-9, Andy Stocks hit an unbeaten 40 and pro Yasir Bashir 37, Peter Walder took 3-33. Earlier, John Waddington top scored for Standish with 56, pro Pankaj Tripathi added 44 and Paul Hassan 29 while Stocks began his all round performance with 3-54.

Little Hulton passed Edgworth's target of 102-6 with eight wickets remaining, Mark Penny hitting 51 and pro Ijaz Mahmood 38. Earlier, Andy Sutherland had taken 3-46 while David Critchley hit 28, Nick Kernick 25 and pro Gary Garner 23.

Golborne ran out of time to overhaul Daisy Hill's 140-6, Jamie Birch 33, Andy Clarke 31 and Michael Chilton 27, Ian Critchley 3-51. From the 24 overs they were allowed by the rain they hit 128-6 with both Dale Tyrer and Carl Hewitt hitting 42, the latter from just 24 balls. Steven Hodgkinson took 3-60 for Daisy.

Elton and Adlington managed just 20 overs of play before packing up and going home with Elton on 62-2, John Pemberton scoring 35.

There was even less action at Walshaw where Clifton were on 25-3 at stumps.