Key weekend for Priory and Park

Priory will host Horsham in the Sussex Premier League tomorrow (Saturday) and visit Bexhill in a Gray-Nicolls Sussex T20 Cup second round tie on Sunday, while Park will entertain Middleton in Sussex Division Two before heading to Dinton in Buckinghamshire for a National Village Cup last 32 tie.

Despite winning their last three away games against Brighton & Hove, Three Bridges and Cuckfield, fifth-placed Priory have lost three in a row at home to Preston Nomads, Chichester Priory Park and Worthing.

“It’s rare for us as usually we do much better at home,” said senior player John Morgan, who wished to apologise for saying Sidley had folded in last week’s Observer Sport. “Hopefully tomorrow we can change that and pick up 30 points against a good Horsham side.

“We’ve had a bit of bad luck, though really we just haven’t batted or bowled nearly as well as we have in away games so far this season.”

Park will be targeting a swift response to last weekend’s agonising one-run defeat at Goring-by-Sea when they lost their last six wickets for nine runs.

“It took me a good 24 hours to calm down,” admitted captain Colin Ayres. “There were a couple of odd decisions but really we just have ourselves to blame. The biggest problem for me is that overall, we functioned very well as a team - especially in the field.

“It was just one of those things, which you often see in cricket. The week before we took advantage against Bexhill, this week it was us who suffered.

“I can’t dwell on last week too much as many would’ve laughed at me if I’d have said we’d be where we are after eight games. But we’ve shown so far we’re more than up to the task of being competitive in this division.

“A win today will mark a very good first half of the campaign for us. In truth, tomorrow could be the defining point; it could go along way to showing if we can kick on and challenge the top three or four, or whether we just need to consolidate ourselves in the division for the rest of the season.”