Neil Marshall column: Everyone wants to play in Lancashire Cup semi-final

Lancaster City and Padiham meet in the Lancashire Challenge Trophy semi-final on Tuesday.

Everyone wants to play on Tuesday so those who start against (visitors to Giant Axe) Trafford will be desperate to hang onto their shirts.

We’re at home and should be looking for the three points but Trafford are a good side.

From our point of view confidence is high though and we’re playing really well at the moment.

If we can keep our form then we’ve got a decent run in compared to other teams.

We’ve got to win those games but we’ve got the likes of (bottom side) New Mills to play twice.

That’s no disrespect to them but it’s wide open for me.

We’ve played more games than anyone in the division so far but they’ve got to play each other.

It isn’t just our position in the league which is looking promising because we’ve got the chance of reaching a major final on Tuesday night.

I’ve been playing the Lancashire Cup for 10 years now and I think I’d only reached one semi-final before our good run this season.

It’s a great opportunity for us against Padiham but they will be looking at it the same with the winners playing Chorley at the Macron Stadium (the home of Bolton Wanderers).

As with the league game on Saturday, we’ve just got make sure we focus on the job in hand and don’t look too far ahead because although we’ve got a good record against Padiham and they’re in the league below it will be a big test.

It should be a good occasion though. It’s a neutral semi-final but Leyland isn’t too far for fans of either side to travel.

Hopefully our performance matches the importance of the game.

Ideally we should be heading into the Trafford and Padiham games with another win under our belts.

Before the game at Farsley on Saturday we’d have taken 0-0 I think, especially given the fact they’d won 12 of their last 13 games.

But that feeling certainly changed as the game went on.

We should have been a couple up at half-time and then had good chances in the second half.

It’s maybe a couple of points dropped, and was certainly a good chance to end their unbeaten run, but we’d certainly have taken the draw beforehand.