Ottery St Mary skipper Jody Clements has spoken about his team’s change in fortunes this season.

He said after a successful run-a-ball run chase against promotion seeking Ipplepen: “We have shown that when we can put out a regular side we are a match for every team in the section and it’s a shame we had those early season availability woes for I am sure, had we picked up 25 more points over the first five games, we’d be challenging right now for a top two finish. We have left ourselves a little too much to do. Axminster currently sit second and have a 54-point lead over us in fifth with 100 points to play for and that’s too big a gap to make up. That said all we can do is try to keep winning and if we do that then a top three finish is not beyond us.”

Next up is tomorrow’s visit of a Chagford side that sit immediately below them in the C Division.

Clements says: “The Ipplepen skipper remarked about how different we looked from the Ottery side they had meat earlier in the season and hopefully Chagford will get the same feeling! They beat us at their place on June 1, but we do have such better availability now and our batters and bowlers are all finding form. I could not be happier with how we are performing individual and collectively.”