A strong streak of form has buoyed the Newtown Tigers into one of the sought after top spots, knocking the CYMS Cougars into fourth spot as the competition's back-half begins to become clearer.

A committed and concentrated fight-back against Macquarie in Friday night's limited overs round, and a strong performance against Rugby during Saturday's regular Whitney Cup round both paved the way for Newtown to take the wealth of the points in this round and bully their way past CYMS into the third spot.

Newtown skipper Mat Skinner called the results 'important' in terms of the overall look for the Tigers heading into the second half of the season.

READ ALSO:

Skinner had been targeting a top three place for the Tigers before the Christmas break, but was content to slip in a week after the return after a series of shake-ups at the apex of the ladder.

"They're two very important games for us, the Macquarie game especially on the Friday night; they're the team we're fighting for that top three spot at the moment, so we knew it was going to be a big game for us in that moment," Skinner said.

The results will make things interesting for the RSL Colts, who now have another team looking to take a shot at their current crown.

Skinner called the effort on Friday night a 'lucky' result, given how strong the opening effort by Macquarie Cricket Club had been and how much trouble the Tigers had appeared to be in after an opening partnership between Jason Green (45) and Myles Smith (54, not out) had left them worried.

"Lucky we scraped through, they got away a bit ffrom us with the bat, but we rallied and ended up scraping through with the win at the end," Skinner said.

"The way the boys fought back when we were under the pump was really good to see, in previous games and years, we've found it hard to rally, and they just let the other team dominate, but we go that big wicket of Greeny at a key point and we ended up managing to keep Myles off strike for a while."

Once the all important wicket of Green was snatched by Newtown's Lee Price with the ball, things became easier, with the pressure mounting on Smith and the following wickets coming cheaper and cheaper to constrain Macquarie to 126.

"We were bowling a bit tighter and put a bit more pressure on them and got that steady flow of wickets going."

While Mitch Russo only reached 17 before being bowled by Ben Haylock in Friday evening's fixture, he returned with a much higher target in mind for Saturday's meeting with Rugby Cricket Club.

"Mitchy had sent me a message the night before saying he felt like he was really keen to open the batting, so I gave him the opportunity to do that and it really paid dividends for us," Skinner said.

Russo reached 83 from that opening spot, before being caught by Glenn Shepherd, sending eleven balls to the boundary during his spell at the top of the order.

Lee Price chipped in ably as well, contributing a clean half-century to the partnership before Steve Skinner (24, not out) chipped in the last of Newtown's 163 run chase.

Able bowling had earlier restricted Rugby to 162.

"We bowled really well early and put them under a lot of pressure, they had to come out hard after drinks and try and score some quick runs, but we go them to a comfortable total we felt good about chasing," Skinner said.

The RSL Colts reached 208 in downing the Cougars thanks to a Brad Cox (83) led batting effort, while Macquarie squeezed past a determined South Dubbo with 167.

That sets up a big two weeks for Newtown, who will meet CYMS and Macquarie over the next two rounds of Whitney Cup playtime.