CAPTAIN Matt Garner is hoping things can only get better for Earby.

The Applegarth club have won only one of five Ribblesdale League games this season, having gone into the campaign without a professional after opting to only utilise the overseas amateur option.

Garner admits the league’s two-tier system has also taken its toll on his troops so far - certainly when it comes to results.

But he is backing them to turn a corner soon.

“We haven’t played anyone out of our own division just yet so it’s been a tough start,” said Garner, who is still smarting from a hat-trick of defeats to rivals Barnoldswick, in the league, T20 and most recently in last weekend’s Ramsbottom Cup.

“We’ve played Barnoldswick three times in a fortnight and all of them have been away.

“It’s always disappointing to lose to our rivals. But they are in the tier above so we knew that getting anything positive out of the game was a big ask.

“We batted first and didn’t get enough runs on the board. We would have looked to maybe push towards the 200 mark but fell almost 50 short, and with a batting line-up like Barlick’s it was always going to be difficult.

“We thought we were in with a chance because we got the main batter early on but we dropped a catch to take two early wickets, which may have been costly.

“After that they batted us out of the game. But we will come good, once we start facing teams around us, at our level.”

The league split comes in from next weekend when Earby travel to Brinscall.

But first they face a trip to Section A side Euxton on Saturday.

“There’s room for improvement. We just need to get a couple of wins to get us going and get our confidence up,” said Garner.

“We’re going into what you would class as ‘easier’ games. In one sense it’s good to get the tough ones out of the way, but in another we have batsmen who are struggling for confidence because it has been such a difficult start.

“We are at full strength on Saturday so we’re going to give it everything we’ve got.”

He added: “We know our levels and try to pick bonus points up where we can because I think they are going to be key.

“We keep up with the run rates and score fairly well but we’ve only batted the overs out once so we just need patience with the batting and try to see out more games.

“We signed Matt Nutter, which we thought was the batsman we needed. But we all need to chip in more, myself included.

“We didn’t go down the pro route this year, so we are behind before we’ve started in most games.

“But we have an overseas amateur (Ryan Levy) - he’s bowling well and has got quite a few wickets.”

Earby can switch off from their league struggles on Friday night in their T20 trip to Settle.

“It’s anyone’s game, “ said Garner. “We just go out to enjoy it.”