Ottery St Mary made it two wins out of two matches under the management of Dave Fairweather when they won 3-1 at Otterton, ending the hosts’ eight game unbeaten season in the process.

James Gosney with a brace and Toby Harris – the latter deputising for older brother Adam who was unavailable for the match, scored the goals.

For the second game running Fairweather had seen his new charges lead 2-0 at the interval, but once again he was left feeling decidedly ‘ill-at-ease’ with the first 45 minutes from his side.

He explained saying: “It is something we need to work on as I have noticed – albeit across just two games –a trend where we seem to establish a foot hold in the game, even a lead, and then become sloppy in possession. As everyone in the game knows, 2-0 is a difficult score line as teams can tend to lose focus when two up. You find yourself supposedly in the comfort zone, but at this level the opposition can hit you in the blink of an eye. Keeping the ball ought to be the first thought of the players – especially when holding a lead!”

Ottery finished the job off in the second half and now, with coming games against two of the current top three, have a real chance of pushing on to claim one of the coveted three promotion berths.

Fairweather said: “Overall it was a very good performance. I am at risk being called ‘picky’ perhaps with regard to my thinking that even at 2-0 all is not right, but those are the high standards I want the players to work to. As I said after the previous win, given the lack of time we have had together on the training ground, I am loathe to claim too much of the credit. Most, if not all of that must go to the players who have responded so well to what I have asked of them so far before matches and again at half-time.”

Tomorrow (Saturday) the Otters are again on the road when they visit second in the table Feniton Reserves.

Fairweather says: “There’s absolutely no reason why we cannot go to Acland Park and get a result. We do have some real talent in the squad and I still maintain that all that is needed is a fine tuning of discipline and direction and, at this particular level of the Fresha League, the sky is the limit for this group of players. When Feniton came to us earlier in the season they went away with the three points courtesy of a 2-1 win and it would be nice to turn the tables at Acland Park.”

In terms of squad news for the trip to Feniton, Fairweather is once again without last season’s leading scorer Adam Harris owing to work commitments, but his brother Toby, who deputised so well at Otterton, scoring one of the goals, keeps his place.

Fairweather says: “We are expecting to see five new faces across the first and second teams this weekend (the Ottery Reserves are at home to Sidmouth III), and that augers well for the club’s immediate future as it means we now have a good sized competitive squad with competition for places in both teams hotting up!”

The Ottery Reserves have more reason than most to hope that this weekend’s Fresha League programme does not suffer another washout for they have not seen action since December 12!

That means if they do take to pitch to take on the Vikings’ third team it’ll be their first game for eight long weeks!