YATE Town will be ‘honest’ to the rest of the Evo-Stik Southern League Division One South and West teams who are battling for survival or play-off places this season.

Bluebells manager Craig Laird said it is a very long shot that, after defeats in recent weeks to North Leigh and, last Saturday, away at Winchester City, the club could push for the play-offs and promotion themselves.

So he is now looking to consolidate at Lodge Road and is focussing on the next league campaign.

Yate bounced back from the dismal result at Winchester by going to Burnham on a horrible Tuesday night for a tough clash with the strugglers and came away with a satisfying 3-0 victory.

Striker Darren Edwards grabbed two goals, one a team effort and the other a lovely chip over the home goalkeeper.

The other came from new striker Sacha Tong who came on as a second-half sub.

Laird said: “It was disappointing after the last two results We were our own worst enemies against Winchester but the win at Burnham was good.

“They are fighting for their lives in the Southern League and we played really well to win the game.”

But those losses plus the postponements during January mean that Laird is looking towards next season.

He said: “I think that, in January, if we were able to play the games we had called off, that would have given us momentum to go into the North Leigh and Winchester games but they (defeats) sort of stopped it.

“It’s going to be a big ask for us to reach the play-offs so we need to focus on next season. You have to be realistic. I don’t think we will have the opportunity to make the play-offs.”

But far from just taking it easy from now until the end of April, Laird said Yate will fight for every point and ‘do the league justice’.

“You have to keep it honest,” said the manager. “There are teams who are in the play-offs who are playing us and teams who are down at the bottom who are playing us. All of them deserve a decent game.

“We are honest in everything we do. There are teams looking at us to do that and we want to do the league justice.”

Laird is looking to keep Tong for a while. He signed for Yate last week and the manager said he ‘came on and looked lively’ on his debut at Burnham. He added: “Hopefully, we will have Sacha for the foreseeable (future).

“We have got a good little team and squad now and we just need to keep moulding it. The team have learnt a lot about themselves this season and I have become a better manager.”