GOLBORNE are not the first team that comes to mind when the issue of Association promotion favourites arises.

Even their own captain comes up with the names of other sides before mentioning his own.

Not that Tom Pantak is ruling out any challenge coming from the Simpsons Fields outfit whom he says have a good level of quality running right through the side.

Tomorrow they host Little Lever – who go into the game in third place, one point behind leaders Astley Bridge after their run of three opening league wins was halted by a home defeat to Blackrod last Saturday.

Golborne are six points behind Little Lever (there are six points for a win) in fifth place after two wins and two defeats in their first four games.

Golborne have started with a win, loss, win, loss sequence that if continues will see another win next to their name tomorrow.

Also, with both wins having come at home, and them hosting tomorrow's game, the early omens are in their favour.

Pantak, however, plays down any relevance of patterns or home advantage, preferring to look at the strengths of the two sides for an indication of how tomorrow's game might go.

He said: "Little Lever are a good side who have started well and look like they are going to challenge for promotion, especially with [professional Adil] Nisar who can win you games on his own.

"But we can't just concentrate on him because if we do they have other players who can beat you.

"They are one of the teams I would look at to do well this season. But, to be fair, there are about five or six you could mention.

"Astley Bridge look good and people thought Adlington might not do so well before the season but they've started well.

"At the start of the season I thought Heaton were going to do well but they seem to have gone back to doing what we did by focusing on bringing their own players through.

"We have not invested heavily in players. We have always relied on local players and that looks like what Heaton are doing, but they might still come good.

"It's a very close division and you can't call it at the moment. There are eight teams who are all beating each other.

"From our point of view if the pro fires and the amateurs back him up we could be up there."

Golborne have brought in last season's Daisy Hill pro Adnan Raees as their paid man this year, and he joins three or four others whom Pantak sees as his key men.

"Jake Waterworth bats and bowls, Shahid Mahboob has got bags of experience and bowls 15 overs of tight spin, and Moeen Saiyed is a tight spinner," he said.

"Another key player for us is Ciaran Vesey but he is away now for three weeks.

"That means we've lost our wicketkeeper and opening bat which is a big blow."

Their Simpsons Fields ground is going to see plenty of action this weekend with three first-team home games in three days.

Tonight they kick off their Bolton League T20 competition against Little Hulton – looking for revenge for a heavy beating in their other league defeat this season – before tomorrow's visit of Little Lever and then a Hamer Cup first-round match with Premiership reigning champions Farnworth.

While they lost to Little Hulton by 131 runs in the second round of league games, Pantak would not be surprised to see his side win the rematch tonight.

"We love T20," he said. "For some reason it just seems to suit us and we fancy ourselves against anyone at it.

"We make a day of it at the club and enjoy playing the game.

"We beat Westhoughton last year in the T20. Stick us against Westhoughton nine times out of 10 and they will beat us, but at T20 we beat them."

The skipper is relatively happy with Golborne's opening four league matches, but last week's 27-run defeat at Darcy Lever chasing 240 left a sour taste.

"We started slowly, like we did in our other defeat against Little Hulton," he said.

"Against Darcy I feel we should have won. We needed 50 off 10 overs and we should have seen it home.

"But chasing a total is something we have not been good at.

"We seem to have got it into our heads that we find it difficult to chase big totals.

"We have a lot of experience bowling so we like to defend totals, but we don't like to chase big totals.

"Once we get a win under our belts chasing a big total we'll be fine because we have a lot of good batters in the team.

"We're a bit random what order we play because we have 10 batsmen who slot in wherever, but we have matchday 50s right from one to 10.

"If we had won last Saturday I would have said it had been a good start, but compared to recent years it is a better start than usual so something to try to build on."