MAGHULL captain Ryan Swiers believes his players must halt the winning streak of runaway First Division leaders Wigan tomorrow if they are to have any hope of realising their own championship ambitions.

The Bull Hey side has opened up a 50-point lead on the chasing pack after just 10 games of the Business Assistance Liverpool Competition season and Graham Bolton’s team has also won three times as many matches as their opponents from Old Hall Field.

But Swiers wants the massive 107-point gap between the teams to act as a spur to his predominantly young side.

“Tomorrow is a big, big day for us and we need to send a message out,” he said. “We must win the game, or at least stop Wigan doing so. We’re stuck in eighth place at the moment, but we’ll show we’re better than that by the end of the season.”

It would be a fine achievement for Maghull even to join the group of clubs in pursuit of Wigan. The team relegated from the Premier League has rarely looked like a side capable of returning to the top flight at the first attempt, a state of affairs which Swiers puts down to two high-profile departures.

“We lost both Niall McDonnell and Suwanji Madanayake at the end of last season,” he said.

“That’s our captain, plus a total of 1,544 runs and 74 wickets gone. Replacing those two was always going to be difficult and Comp teams seem to be moving away from employing superstars pro’s, which I think is a welcome trend. I’m not sure what good they do in the long term.”

Maghull’s overseas signing this summer is the young Western Australian Shane Townsend, who struggled to cope with English conditions before hitting form with a majestic undefeated 117 at Burscough on May 30.

“He told me that the first five games of our season wouldn’t have started in Perth,” said Swiers.

“He’d never played on wickets anything like them, so it’s no surprise that his hundred was scored on a dry deck. I think Shane will be a good signing for us.”