WEYMOUTH RESERVES 5 BLANDFORD UNITED 0

JAKE Richmond ruled Weymouth Reserves out of the Dorset Premier League title picture, even though his side returned to the top of the pile following their 5-0 thumping of Blandford United.

Two goals from Dan Pidgely along with strikes from Paul Ford, Carl McClements and Adam Anstey wrapped up a fairly straight forward home victory for the Terras.

But even though results went their way this weekend to put them one point ahead at the summit, Richmond remains adamant his charges are out of contention, with teams below them claiming numerous games in hand.

Portland United will still win the league as far as I can see it,” he told Echosport.

“The two that are fighting for the league are Portland and Hamworthy Rec.

“Portland lost but they still have three or four games in hand on us. Hamworthy will probably finish second and we’re battling it out for third.

“I set us a target of a top-three finish and if we finish third I’ll be delighted because we would have achieved that.”

On his side’s performance, which included a much improved second-half showing, he added: “If they’d had a decent striker we could have been a couple of goals down after 10 minutes.

“We started very slowly and it has become a bad habit of ours over the last four or five games.

“To be fair, they had four chances where we lost markers and switched off to a long ball.

“It was a little bit scrappy in the first half and we didn’t really get into any rhythm.

“We were rushing it in areas we shouldn’t be and we were slow in aeas that we should have been quicker in.”

“But once we went 2-0 up we dominated and we played some really good stuff.

“It was just a shame that it took us to get two goals in front to play the football I know we can play, because the first half was very disappointing.”

Terras: Park, Sharpe, Staines (Chatterton 46), Butcher, Anstey, G Will, Asagba, Nichols, Jevon (P Ford 60), McClements (Preece 75), Pidgely. Sub not used: Harvey.