Update:
Maitland senior and junior cricket associations have cancelled Saturday's round of cricket due to concerns over smoke haze over the region from bushfires.
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A remarkable round of cricket has teams from first through to last playing their nearest rivals on the ladder in crunch games which could set up their seasons.
Raymond Terrace host City United in a one-day fixture in the clash of first versus second with both sides coming off unexpected losses last round.
Third-placed Western Suburbs, who are equal on points with City and the Lions, host Eastern Suburbs at Coronation Oval.
In a battle to stay in touch with the top four, Kurri Weston (sixth) have their first home game of the season when they host Northern Suburbs (sixth) at Kurri Central on Saturday.
Tenambit-Morpeth will be looking for their first win of the season when they travel to Thornton (seventh) who have just the one win to date.
City, the 2018-19 premiers, as expected at the start of the season have been the dominant team of the competition.
They recruited well with Andrew Vickery returning to the club to play with mates Josh and Matt Trappel and further bolstered their strength with Dubbo's Wayne Dunlop and Todd Francis from Armidale joining their ranks.
Raymond Terrace, the 2017-18 premiers, have been the surprise packet and with an injection of young talent from their under-16s had, like City, won their opening four rounds.
The Lions winning run was ended by Northern Suburbs and in the match of the round City United were defeated by Eastern Suburbs.
City's loss will not dent their premiership favouritism but it was a reminder that even the most talented batting line-ups can be undone by a disciplined bowling effort backed up by the fielders.
It also reinforced the truth of the old adage catches win matches, with City dropping Easts batsman Trent Park three times on day one on his way to a what turned out to be a match-winning 146.
The battle between Easts and Wests is equally intriguing.
Wests have four wins, with their only loss to City in round three. They accounted for Thornton in their most recent game with a comfortable six-wicket away win.
Easts are fourth on 20 points, five points behind the Plovers, and looking for their third win in a row to cement their spot in the top four. The young Griffins have benefited tremendously on and off-field from the influence of English recruit Toby Godfray.
The Plovers were always going to be a far better team with star batsman Aaron Mahony back in the side, but they have also recruited very well with Englishman Elliott Lewis coming back with Mahony for the Aussie summer.
All-rounder Lewis has already scored a ton and has two hauls of four wickets to just shade Central Coast all-rounder Shaun Hill's impressive figures.
Northern Suburbs and Kurri Weston are fifth and sixth respectively on 15 points are both coming off wins last round.
It's the Warriors first game at home after Kurri Central was not available for the start of the season.
Kurri are coming off a tremendous bowling effort in which they routed Tenambit-Morpeth for just 84 but they will need to produce more with the bat after skipper Tyler Power played a lone-hand with 109 from a total of 177.