Ottery St Mary suffered a huge blow to their hopes of a top five finish and possible gate-crashing the promotion picture after when they went down 1-0 at Kentisbeare.

The Mid Devon side completed a Macron League Division Four double over the Otters, scoring the only goal of a close contest via a first-half free-kick.

However, whereby Otters boss Dave Fairweather had felt the November 2-0 Washbrook Meadow defeat had been the ‘right’ result on the balance of play, he felt his team deserved more this time round.

Fairweather said: “In the home game they were far better than us on the day, but that was certainly not the case this time.

“We produced a performance of two halves – the first saw us play exceptionally well and had two players not ducked in the wall then there is now way that they [Kentisbeare] would have scored with the free-kick.

After the break we were not quite at the same level and so I’d argue that we deserved a draw for what was, in general, a good all-round performance.”