Morpeth and North Sunderland hit by postponements

The yellow and blacks have the Divisions leading scorer in Damien Stevens and sit in second spot behind Whitley Bay Sporting.

Donnelly was disappointed that the side’s game against Blyth Town reserves was frozen off last weekend and is hopeful that the weather will pick up ahead of their trip to second-bottom Benton on Saturday.

“The lads are itching to get going again,” he said.

“We’re really pleased with how the first half of the season has gone but we can’t go into second half of season and take our foot off and undo all our good work.”

“We are in a good position at the minute and really need to keep going if we want to go up - that has to be our aim.”

Fellow Division Two side North Sunderland face a tricky trip to in-form Hexham on Saturday and the Fishermen’s manager Alan Macfarlane is looking forward to the journey to Tynedale.

“We’ve had a bit of a hit and miss season so far mainly down to player availability but we turned a corner in October and are on a decent run since then,” he said.

“We’ve got a very difficult Amateur Cup semi-final away to league leaders Whitley Bay Sporting in a fortnight but if we play how we have been playing of late we fancy our chances. This is the cup we want to win the most after winning it two years ago,” he continued.

“We’re also in the last eight of the Bill Gardner Cup and play Premier Division side Newcastle Chemfica in February - again we fancy giving them a good game with it being at home.”

“We’ve got some decent league games coming up so I’d like to be pushing up the table and aiming for a top 4/5 place come May - but the cups are our main priority this year.”