The John Barton column

I think the acid test over a season is always your league programme, as much as you try to make progress in cup competitions.

We now have six games left in which to finish what has been a decent job up to now, and hopefully give some cause to think of further improvement for next season.

When you look at the likely composition of the league next season, with teams like Hednesford and Kettering likely to come down from the Conference and it looking likely that we'll still have Burton to deal with, it looks once again as if it will be a hard, competitive league.

As I said at the club's annual meeting on Sunday, up to date it has been a good season without being a successful one. Success is measured by silverware and trophies, and we have had a decent run but it needs to be finished off.

We have had the improvements that we have called for in the summer. We have had disappointments on the way, but we have had some terrific away performances.

Our home form needs to improve, and we certainly need to take a bigger haul of points at St George's Lane.

There is not much between any of the teams in this league, as we have said before. It is about what happens on the day, and Saturday was a case in point when we lost at home to Welling.

Because we have won down there doesn't mean to say you will beat them in the return fixture. Sides are very closely locked together in terms of ability.

We are six points above our final points tally for last season, and it would be nice to think we could get somewhere near a points total in the mid-60s.

You look at our run-in until the end of the season and as it stands now, there is an importance attached to nearly all of our games.

We have Newport on Friday, Crawley and Havant and Waterlooville who are all looking to finish as high as they can, Halesowen - who we play on Monday - and Fisher who are wanting points to help beat the drop, and Margate who are going for the title.

There is no end-of-season feel to any of those games - there is something to be done in each one.

Our defeats against Evesham and Welling were both very similar games. We have given two-goal starts to both sides and you can't do that, and consequently we have found it hard to catch up with our second-half performances.

I thought Evesham thoroughly deserved their victory and were better than us all over the park for the majority of the game.

They have been doing very well this season and Phil Mullen has a workmanlike, hungry side there. The 2-1 scoreline probably flattered us.

On Saturday, after Welling scored their second goal, I didn't think we were under too much pressure. We had a lot of possession and created a fair amound of chances which weren't taken, and that just highlights our goals for total again.

It isn't strong enough - we are 15 goals short of competing with the other sides around us. We need people to come in with their fair share of goals - it isn't solely the responsibility of the front players.

But at least two of our younger players caught the eye. We managed to get Jamie Hyde further up the field where he can do some damage when he came on, and his second-half performance was very encouraging.

Wesley Joyce gave an enthusiastic performance, and from the angle of having two young players in wing-back positions, they certainly didn't let the side down.

They haven't had many games lately, and the main disappointment for me has been the reserve team programme. We have lost lots of games due to the weather - we are not the only ones - but it was particularly frustrating over the Christmas and New Year period where we weren't able to get a fixture.