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.

Newport IoW's John Linington was a contented manager - despite seeing the Islanders eclipsed 3-2 at home by Horsham.

Although the result wasn't to his liking, the performance certainly was and he said: "If we can take that form to Bashley on Boxing Day, I reckon we'll have a chance.

"I was chuffed with the way we played today. Even the crowd said we were good and felt we should have won."

Port are still in trouble four off the foot of the table, but the team has improved beyond all recognition from their early days of struggle.

In between Gary Charman's double strike for Horsham, Dave Greening missed a couple of great chances for Newport and it was he who gave them hope with a goal 11 minutes from time.

Within two minutes Marc Cable had scored again for the Sussex visitors, but Greening had the last word with his 13th goal in as many games.

Both Newport goals were set up by Adam Barsdell, who got his wish to play up front because Ashley Wright is out with glandular fever.

Linington said: "Right at the end, Alex Perry put one just past the post that would have made it 3-3. We had the chances, but these other teams are quite clinical against us.

"I wasn't happy with the referee over Horsham's third goal. There was a foul right by the corner flag, but the ref let them take it ten yards deeper and they got a better angle on the cross. I was disappointed."

Steve Riley and two-goal Lee Paul found the target as Fleet Town nudged up to 17th with a 3-1 win at Molesey.

Molesey's reply came courtesy of a 30-yard back pass from Fleet's former England international Andy Sinton, which was totally missed by keeper Justin Gray.