Woodford Wells captain Joe Johnson knows they face a tough test against in-form Upminster this weekend.

Wells make the trip to Upminster Park on Saturday to face Alan Ison’s unbeaten side as they look to bounce back from a 45-run defeat to Loughton last time out.

“It’s going to be tough on Saturday as Upminster look bang in form and are always up for a battle,” said Johnson.

“We’ll have to put together a more complete performance than Saturday to compete with them.”

Loughton won the toss and elected to bat first where they posted a score of 196-9 as all of their batsmen chipped in, while Reeve Cyster (3-44) was the stand-out with the ball for Wells.

In reply, Woodford were bowled out for 150 with Connor Caplan (37) and Hugo Blogg (34) the top scorers.

“It was a massively disappointing game on Saturday. I was surprised when they won the toss and chose to bat first with all the rain we’d had but perhaps that’s the way to go now with Duckworth Lewis coming into play more," added Johnson.

“Not that it really impacted the game too much. We let them off the hook and allowed them to get 50 or 60 more than they should and then batted poorly.

“Losing two wickets from the first two balls was not ideal and Reeve got a great ball soon after. We did recover a little but it’s the silly shots that are getting ourselves out that we have to take out of our game.

“The league is going to be so tight this year and we have to start performing better soon otherwise we will be too far behind by the time we have our strongest side together.”

The captain added: “There were some positives to take from the game. Rob Kingham bowled well again and Reeve’s pace and accuracy will be a potent weapon for us this year but we have to kill teams off when we get them five or six down and bat far better than that to win games.”