THEY have been somewhat light on runs all through the season, and have exited each of the cup competitions.

But not only are Farnworth in with a shout of the Premiership title, they know they are in control of their own fortunes.

A three-horse race has emerged at the head of the table, with Farnworth four points adrift of leaders Walkden and four points ahead of Horwich RMI.

And, ahead of taking on the Premiership’s fourth-placed side, Lostock, tomorrow, captain Simon Booth says all their focus in on regaining the title they last won two years ago.

“We’ve been dumped out of the cups in the last few weeks,” he said.

“We lost our Peter Stafford Trophy semi-final against Bradshaw [on June 30], they dumped us out of the T20 Cup a week later and Walkden beat us in the Hamer Cup semis last weekend, so we’re going for the league title, that’s all that’s left for us.

“If we win it then great, if not then we will have to look at this season as a failure, it’s as simple as that.

“The way we look at it is that our destiny is in our own hands, we still have to play Walkden [on August 10] and Walkden play Horwich a week later.

“A lot of it will boil down to the head-to-heads.

“I don’t think all the teams going for the title will win all of the last seven, but the way we’re looking at it is that we can’t afford any slip-ups from here.”

Their challenge continues at Bridgeman Park tomorrow, with the visit of a Lostock side that is surely too far off the pace to mount a late challenge but with an 11-point gap to Kearsley in fifth.

And Booth knows it will be another stern test of their championship credentials.

“I’ve said a few times in the past that Lostock have been something of a bogey side for us,” he added. “But this year we did beat them twice in one weekend, in the league and the Peter Stafford, but we know it won’t be easy this weekend. They are a very decent side, they’ve got some good players, but we know if we can get our batting sorted out we’ll be okay, because we’ve been hit-and-miss with the bat all season.

“I don’t think we’ve clicked at all this season, we’ve not scored anything like enough runs, I think that’s synonymous throughout the league this year.

“One game early in the season aside, when we got 293 in 37 overs last weekend at Kearsley it was the first time we’d reached 200 in any form, and that was in a 37-overs-a-side game. If we can get 200 in a game, with our bowling attack we’ll fancy ourselves to win any game.

“Fortunately Noman [Ali, the side’s pro] has been top-drawer, he’s been in great form, he took seven wickets against Horwich a couple of weeks ago and followed it up with five against Kearsley last week.

“We’ve basically got two professional left-arm spinners in Noman and Kamran Younis.

“We have six ‘proper’ bowlers, led by Noman who is top of the bowling charts with 28 wickets.

“Our homework for the next few weeks is just to improve our batting, if we can do that and back up the work Nomad is doing we’ll give ourselves a chance.”