BRADSHAW captain Nick Lester believes it will be vital for Premier Division teams to get off to a good start this season.

He says the competition is so strong that any team that struggles early season will find it difficult to challenge for trophies.

The Rigbys men had to wait a few weeks for their first win last season, and Lester warns a repeat of that must be avoided.

His side gave themselves a confidence booster last Saturday when they beat Littleborough convincingly in the National Knockout.

And they could scarcely have a more difficult start to the Bolton League campaign when they kick off with an away game at reigning league champions Farnworth Social Circle tomorrow in the Peter Stafford Trophy which occupies the first three Saturdays of the season.

Lester knows the degree of difficulty could scarcely be bigger, but he is not expecting any easy games this season.

"The top division is going to be ridiculously competitive," he said.

"No disrespect to any of the teams we played last season but the 10 teams in the Premier Division are all very strong.

"There are seven or eight clubs who will all be trying to win the league and are all probably capable of it.

"You're not going to get any easy games and, to be honest, that's the way it should be.

"You play cricket to have hard, competitive games not to beat someone easily and be done by three o'clock."

Bradshaw have a new team manager this season in Steve Liversedge and have brought in Sri Lankan pro Sachithra Serasinghe, Australian overseas Darcy Cotter, opening bowler Scott Howarth from Lindlow and bowler Marwan Mohammed from Worsley.

Atiq Uz-Zaman and Jake O'Byrne have left, the latter to Social Circle, and Lester believes his side has put together a side capable of competing for trophies.

"We want to be winning the league and cups and we're quite happy with the side we've got," he said.

"We're confident we can be competitive but we can't afford to get off to the start we had last season when it took us five or six weeks to get our first win under our belt.

"Any team that gets off to a bad start like that this season is going to find it hard to get up the division because of how strong it is."