This weekend, Mousehole’s Western Football League fixture sees them travel across the Tamar, into Devon, where they will put their wits against Buckland Athletic, writes Ben Garland.
The Seagulls will be looking to do the league double over Buckland, after beating them 3-2 in late January.
Mousehole come fresh off a decisive 9-1 victory on the weekend, beating a visiting Bridport side in miserable conditions in Cornwall.
Seagulls’ manager Jake Ash was quick to emphasise his side’s strong mentality going into Saturday’s encounter.
“There isn’t any complacency off the back of last week,” he said. “We expected to win the game and although 8-1 looks great, it wasn’t really very pretty or satisfying in that weather.
“We treat every game individually, so we’ll just be concentrating on what we need to do this week – as opposed to what happened last week.”
A real bonus for Ash’s side is the squad depth and availability, with Mousehole boasting an almost fully fit squad bar Andy Elcock and Josh Magin.
“Andy Elcock is getting closer but needs some minutes,” continued Ash. “We are hoping he can play for the development team next week and Josh Magin is out with a long-term injury, other than that we have a full squad available and hungry.”
Usually Ash, along with the rest of the coaching staff, analyse the performance of Mousehole’s during games but this week was slightly different.
“I won’t say this very often, but we all agreed that there was no point analysing Saturday. The game was played in the worst conditions I’ve ever seen, to the point that we just had the ball lumped up the pitch in the last 20 minutes because it wasn’t moving on the floor.”
Mousehole will go in search of back-to-back wins in the league and, after edging Buckland 3-2 earlier in the campaign, Ash knows all too well how important it is not to underestimate the team from Homers Heath.
“Buckland are a good side who are capable of beating anyone on their day but we are looking forward to it and know if we are at our best, we’ll be hard to beat.”