DIRECTOR of rugby Adam Fletcher says Lymm’s next two away games take them to “arguably the two most difficult places to play.”

After a break from fixtures next weekend, they travel to Rossendale on February 1 before a trip to Sandal seven days later.

However, they will go into their fixtures with confidence high after beating North Premier leaders Billingham on Saturday.

A 23-20 victory continued Lymm’s 100 per cent record on Beechwood’s new artificial pitch and Fletcher can feel the confidence building.

“You have to play well if you are going to beat the league leaders, and I thought we were excellent,” he said.

““We will enjoy the win but we know we have to keep improving.

“Our next two games are away from home at arguably the two most difficult places to play.

“Confidence is building, so let’s bring them on.”

Lymm trailed 13-9 at the break as Billingham started solidly, but they continued to incur the ire of the referee to allow Cormac Nolan to keep the home side in the game with three successful penalties.

Two tries and a penalty were conceded by the hosts, but they were in touch and that proved critical to what followed after the break.

Two more Nolan penalties nudged Lymm ahead before Steve Pilkington scored their sole try that proved crucial – searing through the line to score and round off a neat move.

Nolan was off target with the conversion but booted his fifth penalty to move Lymm 10 points clear and despite a third Billingham try with four minutes remaining, they held on for victory.

Fletcher praised Nolan, who started in his usual full-back position before moving to scrum-half, for keeping his side in touch and the defence for not allowing the Billingham fly-half to have too much influence on proceedings.

“Our energy and attitude was superb and our defence was aggressive,” he said.

“We spoke a lot on how we couldn’t afford their 10 to boss the game – he’s a class player so we wanted to pressure him often.

“We didn’t really fire a shot in the first half, but the superb kicking from Cormac Nolan kept us in touch.

Our attack in the second half started to function and I thought we looked like a real threat. Our try was executed really well.”

Lymm: Gav Woods, Adam Bray, Harry Ratcliffe, Joe Watson, Aaron Rasheed, Campbell Thomson, James Lewis, Oli Higginson; Tom Shard, Tom Bray; Nathan Beesley, James Kimber, Steve Pilkington, Alfie Simpson, Cormac Nolan. Subs: Nick Ashton, James Yates, Josh Hadland

Lymm's seconds also played on the artificial surface and beat their Blackburn counterparts 31-17 in an earlier kick off.

Will Leach, Josh Hamer, Josh Davies, Jorge Reynolds and Rory Riddell were all on the scoresheet for the hosts.