NIGEL FIELD hopes that Farnham Royal can use their double success this season to push on at a higher level in the years to come.

The Farnham first team, captained by Field, have finished runners-up to Wooburn Narkovians in Thames Valley Division 4B, while the second team are champions of Division 7B - though they will not be promoted due to a league restructure.

The Royals could have won Division 4B but for a 45-run defeat at Theale & Tilehurst on Saturday and, though Field admits that is a disappointment, he has hailed the success of his young stars.

He told the Observer: “We were already promoted before Saturday but it would have been nice to go one further and actually win it, but hey-ho.

“We were top for 17 weeks but managed to cock it up right at the end. It would have been nice to win the league but we didn’t have enough gumption to take us over the line.

“It’s just a little bit disappointing because we were top from day one until the last day, but the last two matches probably let us down. Maybe we relaxed a little too much and took our foot off the pedal.

“The total to chase on Saturday (181) was not out of our reach but we had four players missing watching the T20 finals and unfortunately they were all batsman, so that was relatively weak.”

Field continued: “The second team managed to win their league which is good. It’s just disappointing and bizarre that they can’t be promoted, but on the whole it has been a very good season.

“We’ve generally had full-strength teams for most of the summer and held ourselves together, so that was good. There was no mix of players coming in and out so from that point of view it was pretty pleasing.

“Promotion was the target and probably has been for the last two years. It was what we expected and wanted to see happen, but you've still got to make it happen.

"If you look at some of our achievements; Ben Pulsford was the highest wicket taker in the whole league, Rohan Agrawal had the best bowling average in the whole league, plus we had two batsman in the top three highest total run scorers for our division.

"But, if you also look, we had three 17-year-olds and a 16-year-old in the first team for most games."

He added: "Hopefully with this success the club will get stronger year after year.

"We're going to have to play better next season, 20-25 per-cent better, but the pleasing thing this year is the number of young players that should get better and have the ability to push on at a higher level.

"I hope these players can feel they can recognise their ambitions at our club and not elsewhere."

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