Carlisle may have the opportunity to gain further ground over title rivals Cockermouth on Saturday.
For while the champions host bottom side Egremont, second-placed Cockermouth have to visit an improved Whitehaven side.
But although it looks a nailed-on home win on paper for Carlisle, we are reminded many times in sport – we don’t play on paper, but on grass!
Egremont have improved from the early weeks of the season and finding more depth to their batting, without having to rely on overseas recruit Raghav Kapur.
Carlisle are still having to book substitute professionals in the continued absence of Michael Slack but appear to have recruited very well so far.
Cockermouth will regard their visit to the Playground as a key game as they try to run down their Carlisle rivals.
A trip to Whitehaven is likely to be a tricky one with Stephen Holliday and his men cock-a-hoop after a derby double over Workington for the first time in decades.
Cockermouth are currently 10 points adrift in second spot and will not want to go beyond that before their showdown at Edenside on Bank Holiday Monday, August 26.
Meanwhile at the bottom of the table Egremont are only three points behind Haverigg and eight in arrears of Workington. They seem to be the main contenders for the drop.
Workington’s fall from grace has been, possibly, the biggest shock of the season in the Premier Division – dropping from joint top to third bottom and without a win since the second week of the season.
They have to reverse that, and quickly, with a trip to Dalton on the agenda.
Dalton, promoted last season, are comfortably going to retain their status and are also in good heart after a good win over Millom last week.
Haverigg, however, do look the side most vulnerable to an Egremont surge over the last seven weeks of the season.
Like Workington they need to get themselves a confident-boosting win and on Saturday face a Wigton side who battled to a fairly close victory over Egremont last week.
Keswick seem to be in a battle for third place with Whitehaven, with the two having exchanged places two or three times this season.
At the moment Keswick lead their west Cumbrian rivals by five points and this week have a home game against Millom, who have recovered from a poor start to the season to sit comfortable mid-table.
The final game sees Cleator hosting Furness at the JD Campbell Memorial Ground when the contributions of the two excellent professionals in Rishabh Tiwari and Matthew Kleinveldt could be pivotal to the result.
