MARK Rishton is sick of his Baxenden side looking good "on paper" - and he is hoping this will be the season they finally turn on the style on the field.

The new Bash skipper has taken over from Dave Usher and hopes this will be a successful campaign.

They have the players in stalwarts Dave and Pete Usher and Simon Payne as well as new players David Parkinson and Andrew Caunce, from the Bolton League, and Oswaldtwistle's opening bowler Kurt Smithson.

They have also got a pro who is used to winning trophies in Jonathan Fielding, who led Clitheroe to victory in 1994 and has taken former club Walshaw to Bolton League glory several times.

"We have been saying it for far too many years," said Rishton. "We have a great side on paper and over the last years we have never lived up to expectations.

"Now it is time to knuckle down. We have had high hopes and then finished in the bottom half of the table too many times and it is not good enough."

Baxenden finished ninth last season in a relatively uneventful campaign with Sri Lankan Indika Gallage as their pro.

"Communication was difficult. He was a decent professional but it was hard. And so with Jonathan there are none of those problems. I remember playing against him when he was at Clitheroe and he was the last pro to get more than 100 wickets. He has a will to win and hopefully he will help us to do that - especially in close matches as we lost too many of those last season."

And he is impressed with the new signings. They have lost Francois Herbst, their South African big hitter from last season but Parkinson, Caunce and Smithson could be big stars.

"David has been in the Bolton League and is a very good bowler. I think he took more than 60 wickets last season and scored 900 runs. He was Farnworth's Player of the Year so he is very good.

"Kurt is a good acquisition and Andrew is a wicket keeper. He is keen and has been concentrating on fielding with us - something which let us down last season as we dropped too many catches."

He hopes his side can upset the top few but knows it will be tough.

"Great Harwood are a good side with a good pro but I think Clitheroe are probably the favourites.

"We have been involved too long to start shouting that we will do well we are but we need to buck up and we want a top four finish."