Captain Wes Royle believes anything is possible for Vernon Carus this year

The new Northern Pyramid structure, which saw the Northern Premier League (NPL) split into two divisions with a promotion and relegation format incorporating the Moore and Smalley Palace Shield, has certainly been a big change in local club cricket.

A Palace Shield club for the vast majority of its existence, Vernons won a place in Division Two of the NPL. That meant they begun the new season playing six 40 Over Cup matches, using the pink ball, in a league format involving clubs from both divisions.

Unfortunately, Vernons were unable to secure a top eight spot to earn a place in next month’s quarter-finals.

It is only over the past few weeks that the red ball has come out of its box for the start of the new league campaign.

And for Vernons, it has been a frustrating time with the weather playing a major role.

Two of their opening three league fixtures were ruined by the weather, while they came out on the wrong side of a high-scoring contest against Euxton.

It means currently they find themselves in the bottom two without a league win to their name but Royle believes the competitive nature of the division means anything is possible for his side this season.

"Playing the pink ball cricket first against some good opposition was a good measuring stick in terms of what we need to do, what we need to get better at,” said Royle.

"The start of the league has been frustrating. We have had two wash-outs in first three games so we can’t really read too much into how we have started. So we have certainly had some interesting cricket.

"Looking at the teams in the division and the standard, I would say all the teams are evenly matched..

"I think that’s the beauty of what we have moved into with this two tier Northern League system and that is what it’s there to do, to create competitive cricket.

"From my team’s perspective, we have got all of the ability to push on and get into it (the promotion mix). I think first we need to start getting some results under our belts and then assess again.”

Meanwhile, Royle reckons his team’s clash against Penwortham last weekend was finely poised before rain brought a premature end to proceedings.

Vernons had posted 121-9 off 20 overs, with Ian Dunn hitting 26. Pen were just nine balls into their reply when the players were forced off.

“I think it would have been a very good game,” said Royle. “It’s the age-old story at Penwortham in that it only takes one player to pull off four or five sixes on a very small ground and the game can run away from you quickly.

“But we were feeling confident that we could do what we needed to execute to go and win that game.

“There is always a lot of emotion when it comes to playing Penwortham with it being a local derby but I thought we put ourselves in a position to win the game, although I would have liked 20 more runs.

“I think 140 would have been a good score but we kept losing wickets.”

This weekend, Vernon entertain Great Eccleston at Factory Lane.

“Great Eccleston are similar to us in the sense that they have got a fairly similar team to what they had last year,” he added.

“They have had a decent start. They had some good results in the pink-ball stuff so they are a team full of confidence. We always have good games against them.”

​NL DIV 1: Garstang v Leyland, Longridge v Chorley, Netherfield v Kendal, Settle v Fleetwood, F&B v Blackpool

NL DIV 2: Barrow v TC, Carnforth v Carlisle, Euxton v St Annes, Mawdesley v Penwortham, Vernon Carus v Great Eccleston.

PS: Burneside v Westgate, Heysham v Torrisholme, Lancaster v Fylde, Penrith v Morecambe, Preston v Eccleston, Rufford v K&W.