THERE are an exciting few days coming up in the Dixon Air Conditioning Twenty20 competition as the group stages reach their conclusion.

Twelve clubs have a sporting chance of qualifying for the quarter-finals and a couple more have an outside chance when they make their final bid to continue in the competition tonight and next Tuesday.

The five group winners will qualify for the quarter-finals automatically, with the four teams with the most points having home advantage. If there is a tie for home advantage then the places will be decided by the toss of a coin or a draw if more than two clubs are involved.

The five teams will be joined by the three runners-up with most points, with the quarter-finals taking place on Friday, June 30 or Tuesday, July 4 at the discretion of the home club.

The only exception will be if there is a play-off for one of the places, in which case the play-off will be on Friday, June 30 with the quarter-final on July 4.

The semis and final will take place at Westhoughton Cricket Club on Sunday, July 9 with the area final on July 30.

So far only one team has qualified, Kearsley from the East group, who have won all five matches and are at home to Darcy Lever tonight. They may be joined by Little Lever who have 36 points but who will probably have to improve on that haul when they entertain Tonge tonight.

Adlington lead the North West group with 44 points, and will qualify as winners if they win at Lostock tonight.

If they fail, their opponents with 37 points will overtake them, but Horwich on 38 and visiting Blackrod at 6.15pm can still win the group.

Should Blackrod and Lostock win, Adlington may only need one or two bonus points for a quarter-final place depending on results elsewhere.

The match between Little Hulton and Farnworth SC this evening is the only one that cannot have any bearing on the competition, but on Tuesday Farnworth travel to Walkden with the winner taking top place and a guaranteed home tie in the quarter-final.

The other team can still qualify as one of the runners-up, but will almost certainly need to bag some bonus points to do so.

A win for Westhoughton at home to Atherton tonight in the West group will see them leapfrog Golborne who are one point ahead but do not play at Daisy Hill until Tuesday.

Atherton in third place and Daisy Hill in fourth can still win the group, but if they both win it is quite unlikely the one with least points will have accumulated sufficient points to qualify as a runner-up.

The final group, North, is currently headed by Bradshaw who can win the group if they win at Heaton tonight. Otherwise the winner will be the winner of Astley Bridge and Eagley on Tuesday.

Like the West group this is a difficult group to qualify from as runners-up.

Clubs can gain bonus points for scoring 120 runs and also for taking seven wickets.

Bonus points were introduced last season so clubs would know within a few minutes of the last group matches finishing who were the qualifiers, rather than waiting till some time the following week when the run rates had been calculated.

Flaws were identified during the competition last year but clubs voted against changes at the AGM.

Do not be surprised if you see a team bowling first and in an apparently strong position suddenly firing a few balls down the leg side out of reach of the wicketkeeper in the final over!