CHRIS Pethick has turned his attentions to a league and county cup double after Purton were eliminated from the Hellenic League Challenge Cup on Saturday, writes Christopher Panks.

The Red House side were thumped 4-1 by higher-division visitors Ascot and although downhearted at the exit, boss Pethick says his troops can now turn their attentions to a Division One West title tilt and the semi-finals of the Wiltshire Senior Cup.

Although they are fifth in the table and 14 points behind leaders Tytherington, Purton have three games in hand on the Rocks.

Pethick said: “We're now hoping for a good draw in the Wiltshire Senior Cup, so that, along with the league is now our main focus.

“Our aim is to win the league games and we'll be in the top three, don't get me wrong, we've got ourselves in the position to do that and I still think we can do it.

“As I've told the lads, we can still win the league if you want to, if we put ourselves out there, but we haven't got the floodlights so we won't get promoted wherever we finish.

“We'd rather have points on the board, but if we win our games in hand, we're five points behind the leaders which is nothing, really.

“We've played them twice already so we can't really affect that too much. All we can do is keep winning games and picking up points and we'll see what happens.“ Inactivity, caused by weather and cup commitments, caused frustration for Pethick over the festive period and Saturday's match against North Leigh will only be Purton's second league fixture since mid-December.

“We had a month's break over Christmas, we didn't play from the 14th until the new year and that didn't help. We've managed to do a bit of training here and there, find a green field to play on Saturday afternoons where we haven't had matches.

“It happens to us every year, we're doing well and then all of a sudden we don't have games, through no fault of our own. All the games called off over Christmas were away games, and so they weren't in our control.

“We didn't have fixtures scheduled for two Saturdays, which was just stupid. Before we know it, now we're three or four games behind everybody.

“I suppose part of it was our cup success, because the last two Saturdays have been cup games, so that's another two league games we've missed.“