A new season and a new league begins for Vagabonds this Saturday at Ballafletcher with the visit of Ormskirk for the opening round in Counties 3 ADM Lancashire & Cheshire

Vagas were at the top end of Division Four last season and, when there were insufficient entries at that level, the remaining teams were dropped into Division Three.

After some chopping and changing to remove geographical anomalies, Vagas will have some familiar teams and some less familiar teams to meet in the weeks ahead.

This weekend’s opponents Ormskirk are probably a bit of both.

The two have met 16 times over the years with the Lancashire outfit ahead on stats, 10 wins to five with one draw.

They haven’t, however, met since 2015 and with they way teams changed, especially pre and post-Covid, previous stats are really just numbers.

Vagas have lost a couple of players over the summer.

Will Taylor and Mark Oldfield have both transferred to Douglas and with no new signings of note, they may well struggle a bit this season.

Another missing from last season is of course Ross Pulman who has just had leg surgery. Losing two arch scavengers like Pulman and Oldfield is likely to be a setback in the forwards. The backline however looks pretty much unscathed and should fare okay.

Most of the teams in Counties Three were at a similar level last season so this is going to be a step up for the Ballafletcher side.

Ormskirk finished 12th though and won’t be too far away on paper and could be the team to give Vagas a dream start.

DAVE CHRISTIAN

Fixtures: Saturday, September 7

Regional 2 North West

Firwood Waterloo v Douglas @ Waterloo ko 1pm

Counties 3 ADM Lancashire Cheshire

Vagabonds v Ormskirk @ Ballafletcher ko 1pm