That’s the opinion of former Times cricket correspondent and long term first grade player Craig Martin.

Wingham this week announced the signing of former North Sydney first grade batsman Ben Jonas, who is a club junior. He’ll play his first game for Wingham tomorrow against Taree West at the Johnny Martin Oval.

Jonas will join newcomer Ben Scowen, who has impressed for Wingham this year along with Josh Davis, a representative all-rounder who was a strong performer with the bat and ball last year. Davis will also play his first game for the season with Wingham tomorrow after switching back from Scone.

Grahame Stinson, who clubbed a century for Wingham in his last appearance, will also make limited appearances for the club in the competition rounds but will be a definite starter for the finals.

“This could be the best batting side we've seen here since the Taree Leagues sides in the late 1980s and early 1990s,’’ Martin said.

Duane Sheather, Mark Watts, Rick Clarke and Dean Rumbel were among the leading batsmen from that era and formed the vanguard of the Leagues batting that paved the way for the side's dominance of the competition.

“Wingham will only get better when the two day games start,’’ Martin predicted.

Wingham captain Matt Essery said Jonas is now working in the Port Macquarie area. While he probably won’t be available every week, he’ll still be a valuable acquisition, Essery added. Essery doesn’t know how much cricket Jonas has played in recent seasons. Ironically, Jonas had been linked as a possible signing by Taree West earlier in the season.

Wingham now leads the competition courtesy of a win over United last weekend – a victory Essery said is one of the best he’s been associated with. Because of injury and unavailable players Wingham had to draw on their lower grades to plug holes, but came away with a comfortable result.

Essery now finds himself with a different dilemma this week – who to leave out.

“It’s not a bad position to be in,’’ he said.

Essery confirmed that opening bowler Ryan Williams will again be used as a batsman-only. Williams is still struggling with injury, however, he managed to smash an unbeaten 67 against United last week to swing the game Wingham’s way.

Taree West’s bowlers, led by Josh Meldrum and Kris Ball paved the way for a win over Old Bar last week. A win will keep the side’s slim one day final hopes alive.

BATTING has been Old Bar’s bugbear in this season’s Manning first grade cricket competition.

The Seasiders are now languishing in last spot after another inept batting performance, this time against Taree West at Johnny Martin Oval.

Old Bar could only manage 74 after captain Blake Polson won the toss and decided to bat.

“Three of our batsmen are scoring 50 per cent of our runs,’’ Polson said.

He said a bit of input from the other batsmen would be ‘nice.’

“It was a tough pitch to bat on last week,’’ he added.

However he said he doesn’t regret his decision to bat. Polson said there were too many soft dismissals.

Old Bar will be at home to United tomorrow and Polson said the wicket is full of runs. He’ll have no hesitation in batting first if he wins the toss, despite last week’s problems.

“United’s the benchmark, so we’re going to have to lift our game this weekend,’’ Polson said, adding his side should be at full strength for the encounter.

UNITED will be forced to reshuffle the batting for tomorrow’s Manning first grade cricket clash against Old Bar at Old Bar.

This follows the loss of Matt Collier and doubts over the availability of Josh Ferris.

United skipper Ricky Campbell isn’t expecting Ferris to play.

“So I’ll have to move everyone up the order,’’ Campbell said.

Campbell said he’ll be looking for an improved effort in all areas tomorrow after a generally disappointing effort in the loss to Wingham the previous match.

“We lost a couple of early wicket but Matt Kennewell and Murray McCartney got us out of trouble,’’ Campbell said.

"I thought 178 would be enough, but they got the runs pretty easily.’’

Campbell said United were sluggish all day. The loss means Wingham are now the sole competition leaders.

United needs one more win to seal a place in the Johnny Martin Cup one day final as mathematically Taree West can still grab a berth.

A win over the struggling Old Bar should be enough to clinch the berth.

A WIN against Hastings on Sunday should secure Manning a home final on January 22 in the Mid North Coast inter-district First X1 cricket competition.

The team is Dean Mills (Taree West), JJ Burton Taree West), Brock Hynes (Wingham), Ben Marron (captain, Taree West), Josh Meldrum (Taree West), Tom Burley (United), Jay Withers (Great Lakes), Rhys Whitton (Old Bar), Sean Carr (Taree West), Zac Withers (Great Lakes), Jonathan Paff (Taree West), Ryan Williams (Wingham).