NO matter what happens in today's battle of the top two Swinton Moorside can already be justifiably proud of their remarkable season.

They harbour hopes of overhauling league leaders Edgworth, who are 22 points ahead of them with four games remaining.

But how Swinton have managed to stay so close for so long is admirable considering they have not had a paid player nearly all season.

The Moorside Park men decided to go without a pro this season and retained last year's overseas player Jake Brown on the same basis.

But when he returned home to Australian for personal reasons in the middle of May, a ruling was made which left them unable to replace him but with plenty of motivation for the rest of the campaign.

"We notified the league and it went to a vote by the other clubs who voted against us bringing in another player to strengthen our side," said captain Jonny Herreran.

"It's given us more motivation to prove the other teams wrong.

"We've got players who have been together for a long time and play for each other.

"David Flatley, Jamie McDougall and me have played together since we were seven. James Wade, our opening bat, has played at Swinton for 20 years and Matt and Chris Norvall have been here for about six years, while the team we have got now have probably played together for three years.

"Last year we had a pro as well as Jake as overseas but this year we thought we would be okay just with an overseas.

"It was our first season last year and we learned a lot. This year we know how to play against each of the teams and if the clubs hadn't voted against us replacing our overseas we could have been up there.

"It really is a team effort, we've got six or seven players who have scored 300 to 700 runs, and I'd say we've probably got the top six or seven batters in the league, amateur-wise.

"James Wade was scoring runs for fun earlier in the season and we bat right down, which we showed last Saturday when we were 120-6 chasing 177 against Flixton and we got 181-7.

"Bowling-wise, Matt Norvall's touching 50 wickets and Brad Palmer does well for us.

"We've lost one or two games we definitely shouldn't have. We lost to Edgworth and Flixton when we were in positions to win, which was disappointing.

"We think winning the league is definitely achievable and if we beat Edgworth tomorrow it will make it interesting."

Today's fixtures (1pm start)

Top six: Swinton Moorside v Edgworth, Atherton v Lostock, Bury v Flixton.

Middle six: Adlington v Worsley, Blackrod v Walshaw, Winton v Astley & Tyldesley.

Bottom six: Little Hulton v Standish, Darcy Lever v Westleigh, Daisy Hill v Golborne.