Bashley boss Geoff Butler takes his goal-shy Foresters into Russell Cotes Cup action at Havant & Waterlooville tonight admitting: "We're hopeless at scoring goals."

For the second time in five frustrating days, Bashley had stacks of possession but did little with it in Saturday's 2-1 Ryman 1 defeat at Corinthian Casuals.

"We play so much football, but we just can't turn our superiority into goals," groaned Butler. "We had four corners in the opening few minutes, but balls were flashing across the face of goal and people were snatching at shots instead of trying to pass the ball into the net."

Unusually, Bashley's 24-goal leading marksman Richard Gillespie barely got a sniff of a chance.

"They defended deep and Richard needs more space to get onto things," said Butler. "He's not having a particularly good time at the moment. He's got a bad habit of trying to break the net if he's five or 25 yards out and is missing a lot of chances. But it's all part of learning, I suppose, and he's bound to have a dry spell."

Perhaps Gillespie's best work was a by-line pull-back for Steve Strong, which would have levelled matters at 2-2. But, having bagged the 60th-minute goal that wiped out Chris Malik's first-half opener for the Casuals, Strong smacked his shot against the post.

The Surrey side took just 90 seconds to nose themselves in front again - Iain Waghorn's mishit shot wriggling under Bashley keeper Stacey Harper.

On the plus side, ex-Totton defender Matt Parnell had another inspired game for Bashley and Dave Wakefield gave the Casuals plenty to think about with one of his best performances of the season.

Skipper Mat Jones is unavailable for tonight's trip to Havant, as is Gary Langrish, who is playing in Phil Simkin's testimonial at Dorchester. With David Elm still out with a hip injury, ex-Brockenhurst keeper Andy Colverson is likely to replace Harper.