PORTLAND Red Triangle captain Matt Randell is looking forward to a pressure-free game when his side travel to Poole Town Seconds in County Division One tomorrow (1.30pm).

After losing their first five games of the season, the pressure has been on to see if the islanders could retain their spot in the division following their promotion last year.

Randell said: “It is going to be quite nice to finish the season off and hopefully we beat Poole and finish the season. It will probably be one of the only games that has been pressure free after losing those first five. 

“After losing those first five we have probably been a little bit pressured for every game since so it will just be nice just to have one on Saturday where we can just go into it and enjoy playing some cricket.”

When asked how it has been after safety was confirmed, with their 87-run victory over Cerne Valley at the weekend, Randell admitted it would have been disappointing to get relegated immediately back down.

Randell said: “I think there is a lot of relief around everyone that we managed to stay up. It would have been pretty disappointing to get promoted and then get relegated.”

“It will be nice just to go up, I think all of the lads are looking forward to just having a pretty relaxed game and just enjoying the fact that we have managed to retain our place in this division and look forward to next season now.”

Randell added: “When they came down to our place their batters were probably a little bit stronger than their bowling so we will look to exploit that again and look to go after their bowlers a little bit.”

Portland (from): Emery, Laws, Jarvis, Proffitt, Leake, Randell, S Barrett, Samuel, Marsh, J Adkins, D Adkins