FAIRFORD boss Paul Braithwaite is taking nothing for granted despite going into tomorrow’s clash with rock bottom Letcombe on the back of a 9-1 victory.

The Cinder Lane side routed AFC Hinksey in the Floodlit Cup on Tuesday evening, with Cameron McLarty scoring four, and will go into tomorrow’s game full of confidence.

Braithwaite will be without McLarty, Nathan Gambling, Henry Trass, Alex Rudd and Cole Murdoch through a combination of injury and suspension, and the Fairford manager knows his side will face a tough test.

“Letcombe have always had a good bunch of lads, a good manager and a good set-up behind the scenes, but things just don’t seem to have gone right for them the last couple of seasons,” he said.

“We are missing a few through injury so will be calling in a few young guys to do a job for us so it won’t be easy and I’ll have to make sure the lads don’t think they’re going to get an easy result.

“Despite where they are we need to show them a lot of respect for them, so whether we win 1-0 or 9-1 it doesn’t really make a difference to me as long as we get the three points. I don’t think it will be as easy as people seem to think.”

Despite insisting tomorrow’s game is far from easy, Braithwaite did admit he and his players will take a lot of confidence from their big cup victory.

“We had a bit of a spell where we lost a few games in a row which led people to worry about what was going on, but we changed the formation because we had nothing to lose and played some good football,” he said.

“We tried to make them work harder rather than us having to do the hard work and we reaped the benefits of that. We had more players in and around the box which helped is make more chances and it must have worked because we scored nine goals.”

Braithwaite has strengthened his defence with the signing of Nathan Hawkins on line from Cirencester, with the centre-half likely to be involved tomorrow.

“He’s a good player and we’re glad to have him in the fold,” Braithwaite said. “He’s a good player who’s good on the ball, but he’s just got back from a broken ankle so getting him some game time will work both for him and for Ciren.”