HOCKEY: Mark Leigh scored a stunning hat-trick as Winnington beat hosts South Cheshire 3-2, but said afterwards: 'It should have been four!'

All his goals came from a range of penalty-corner strikes supporting the claim he is the master technician in the North West League.

In between the goals South Cheshire showed that they were an able outfit. They equalised twice with open play goals squeezed into narrow spaces, the second one came from a breakaway and although well-taken showed that it was the only way they were going to score.

With the defence tightening up in the second half the draw, at least, was secure. John Paul Dodd, Dennis Topping and even members of the crowd were spoken to by the umpire in an effort to calm down their over-zealous efforts.

Leigh's and Park's winning goal came midway through the second half when David Hunt was scythed down in front of the South Cheshire goal. From the resulting penalty-corner, rather than take the aerial route, Leigh smashed the ball into the bottom corner. The ball had rebounded out of the goal before the goalkeeper had finished his dive.

Park ladies rested a number of regulars and included some promising Under 19s in an A side, beaten 6-1 by Macclesfield, the Cheshire League leaders, in a friendly.

Poor marking and concentration let down Winnington, for whom Lizzie Chambers was on the mark.

Park have three remaining league games - including Macclesfield in the last match of the season - and must win them all to have a chance of returning to top flight, North League hockey next season.

On Saturday they are at home to Acton (2.10pm).

RUGBY LEAGUE: Weaverham Wolves picked up two points on Saturday without making a single pass.

Eccles cancelled the game and conceded an 18-0 victory to Wolves by default when they could not raise a side.

Ironically, they had beaten Weaverham convincingly at Lakehouse Field three weeks earlier, when their Conference side were without a fixture.

This week the Eccles senior side were playing in the Challenge Cup and this meant their North West Counties outfit were struggling to drum up a side.

Team manager Lee Butler said: 'This is the problem with life in our league.

'There are clubs that run teams much higher than us and they can bring in quality experienced players, whereas we ourselves are a developing club who look to bring in new players.

'These players unfortunately have no experience of RL and we are addressing this with our junior section set to expand next year.'

Butler added: 'If we had played Eccles when their first team had a game then it would have been much closer. The points could have made us joint third and given us an excellent chance of promotion for the second year running.

'It still is in our hands, if we win our remaining games we could still go up.

'But we have some tough fixtures and it is a big ask.'

Wolves Under 11s' fixture fell foul of the weather for a second successive week. The juniors have been buoyed by the invitation to make their second appearance at Warrington's Halliwell Jones stadium, in a curtain-raising exhibition match. The date has yet to be confirmed.

The Cheshire development side at Under 13 and 14s train at Weaverham and St Wilfrid's Primary will this week make a little bit of history by becoming the first school in Mid Cheshire to play competitive rugby league.