TENBURY’S promotion bid has been dealt a double blow with the club anticipating a 10-point deduction on top of their weekend washout.

Captain Zack Yarranton revealed the Penlu outfit was set to be sanctioned over an incident involving stand-in skipper Aaron Morris, understood to be no more than the use of colourful language towards an opponent, at Bromsgrove III on July 22.

Morris will also serve a five-match ban imposed by the league with the club set to take no further action.

Matters were then made worse on Saturday as Tenbury’s trip to Kidderminster was rained off while promotion rivals Hanley Castle & Upton won.

That alone led to a 15-point swing that Yarranton and his colleagues could do nothing about, placing their hopes of back-to-back promotions in jeopardy.

“We were the only team not to play which was annoying, it was out of our hands and there was nothing we could do,” said Yarranton.

“Unfortunately we look like we will lose 10 points over the disciplinary matter and the two setbacks together could ruin our chances of promotion this year.

“We have spoken to Aaron and he is serving his ban. From the club’s point of view, we feel that is fairly sufficient given the circumstances.

“It is not over yet, there is still a little hope that we can get second but ideally we needed to play on Saturday.

“Had we won, we would still have been five in front of Hanley so even with the loss of 10 points we would still have been right in the mix.

“Now, we have to battle back from third but you never know, the weather could intervene again or there may be a shock result somewhere.”

Should the points penalty be issued, Tenbury would have 20 points to make up on second-placed Hanley but Yarranton still sees light at the end of the tunnel going into Saturday's home clash with third-bottom Hallow (12.30).

“Hanley and (leaders) Bromsgrove play each other on Saturday so one of them has to drop points,” he added.

“It will be pretty hard work either way. We have to keep winning until the end and hope for the best but to miss out would be a shame because we have all tried very hard. It is a lot of commitment for us all so to have it taken away would be hard to stomach.

“We have gone from thoughts of promotion to things turning a bit dark but all you can do is keep going.”

Back at base camp, Tenbury’s seconds lost by five wickets to their Kidderminster counterparts.

Nigel Payne (43), Lewis Giles (18) and tail-enders Marcus Griffiths (27) and Jack Farrar (27*) fired the hosts to 149 for nine.

In response, James Wilkins (35), Clive Smith (15*) and Aaron Dalton (24*) saw Kidderminster through on 150 for five with more than eight overs to spare in spite of the best efforts of Tenbury’s Jamie Farrar (2-26).