PURTON will not have the luxury of easing themselves into the season when they host Trowbridge in their opener on Saturday, according to captain Aaron Lee.

Trowbridge were runaway Wiltshire Division champions in 2015 and followed that up by finishing third in the table last year – although Purton were only one point behind in fourth place.

After winning two of their three pre-season friendlies, Lee feels it will be another good stepping stone for his side against such quality opposition early on as they try to set the wheels in motion for another strong summer.

“It’s a huge fixture to start with. It will be a tough game because they have been a good team for a number of years,” said Lee.

“They won the league two years ago but we only finished one point behind them last year, so it shows how well we improved.

“It’s always tough to say what we might be capable of so early on. I think it will be a much stronger league than it was last year and it will be a case of every team can beat everyone else.

“There are always a lot of movers and shakers over the winter with players moving around so you don’t really know which teams are going to rise to the top at this stage.

“If we perform as well as we can, I think we should win more games than we lose and would like to think we can finish in the top half. If we do that, it’s a decent season.”

Purton have had a relatively quiet winter in terms of recruitment, their only new arrival being South African Sizwe Masondo, who is expected to make his debut in next weekend’s derby at Swindon.

“He is a wicketkeeper-batsman so we are hoping he can contribute runs and apparently he bowls a bit of off-spin as well, although we will have to see about that,” said Lee.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think he is going to be over here in time for the first game but hopefully he can hit the ground running for us the weekend after.”