Royal are languishing third bottom in the table but Walmsley is adamant they won’t finish in the dreaded dropzone despite their current precarious situation.

Studley return to action tomorrow with a trip to the division new boys Heworth (1.30pm start) who dropped down from the Premier League last season.

Walmsley is expecting a difficult game but sees no reason why his side can’t bounce back with a victory after Saturday’s defeat against Sheriff Hutton Bridge.

“They came down last season and they’re a bit of an unknown quantity,” said Walmsley.

“But they’re a mid table side by the looks of it and we’ll just have to go there and see what we can do.

“We just need a win at the moment to build up a bit of confidence.

“Cricket is such a confidence game, one win and then I think we can go on a bit of a run and move up the table.

“I look at our side on paper and we really should be in the top half of the table, if not in the top four, not struggling near the bottom.

“We’ve got some really good players, it’s just time they started performing.

“Looking at the table there’s still two teams below us.

“Scarborough I think are very weak this season and Pocklington we beat quite comfortably earlier in the season so I’m not worried at all.”

Walmsley has admitted he is slowly returning to full strength after missing most of the start of the season with a troublesome back injury.

The skipper fought through the pain barrier on Saturday in their crucial clash against Sheriff Hutton Bridge scoring 26 with support from Rob Mackle (46) as they posted 136 all out.

In response Bridge had no problems moving over the winning line thanks to Paul Oldfield (61) after he and Paul Scaling (39) saw the Bridge to 138-2.

“We’ve got to start building partnerships to set up a better total,” added Walmsley.

“We’ve just not been doing that this season and it’s important we put that right.

“Dan Coad will be coming in from the second team this week. He got some runs last week and we’ve decided to bring him in and give him a chance.”

Tim Edney is missing from tomorrow’s side celebrating his 21st birthday apart from that the Studley line-up should remain the same from last week.

RIPON captain Gary Blackburn has backed his in form batsmen to shine again tomorrow when they gear up for the long trip to Beverley Town 2nds.

The Division Two leaders come into the fixture high on confidence after their double salvo over Duncombe Park in the league and cup last weekend after a fantastic display by his upper order.

Dreams of a magnificent double are now very much on the cards and with star man Jan Dirk Van Dyke firing at the very peak of his powers Ripon’s skipper knows anything is still possible.

“We’ll just have to keep the run going,” he said.

“I don’t know who’ve we’ve got in the next round but whoever we’ve got we’ll give it a good go.