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The squad, made up of the cream of the eight teams in the North Manchester Region Hockey League, picked up double points for every game when they travelled to Bridlington last weekend.

Organisers agreed the concession in the third round of the British In-line Puck Hockey Association contest after a last-minute date change in the second round forced North Manchester to miss out.

Neither the North Manchester Juniors nor the Pee Wees managed a win in the north east but the Juniors held Scotland to a 4-4 draw and the Pee Wees kept level pegging with North East ending in 5 goals a piece.

Score lines in the other matches gave credit to North Manchester's fighting spirit with the North East beating the Juniors 6 - 5 and Greater Manchester winning through with the odd goal in three.

Pee Wees were only a goal behind Greater Manchester who put five past the net minder but they suffered a 7 - 3 drubbing by the Scots in the last match of the day.

North Manchester Juniors are now leading on eight points in the Superleague with archrivals Greater Manchester on five points. The Pee Wees are in second place with four points in their age group.

They play the final round in Greater Manchester on April 8 when fixtures secretary Catherine Parnell hopes the squad will benefit from the venue being closer to home.

She said: "It was too tiring. We had to get the coach at 5.45am and we didn't get back until around midnight.

"There was no seating to sit and watch the match. We had to stand on the balcony and the venue was in the middle of nowhere so we couldn't even go out. We don't realise how lucky we are with the facilities we have.

"A lot of the players had been so het-up about the match they hadn't slept much the night before. Some of them hadn't gone to bed at all because they were sleeping over at each other's houses and the excitement got to them.

"They had a really good day but by the end they were really tired and by the time they had the last match against Scotland they were shattered. They can be proud of themselves though, the rest of the games were very close."