AFC TOTTON boss Steve Hollick believes table-topping Banbury United would be worthy winners of the Southern One South & West title.

Cinderford Town, Totton’s visitors at the Testwood Stadium on Tuesday (7.45pm), are just two points behind the Oxfordshire league leaders with two games in hand.

But in Hollick’s book, Banbury – who completed a season’s double over the Stags with a 3-0 win at the Spencer Stadium on Saturday - are the best side the Stags have played.

“They’ve impressed home and away,” he said. “They’re organised and well drilled and they’ve very unlike a Southern League side really, playing the ball out from the back.

“We were well off it first half and they pulled us around a bit too much for our liking. They scored not long before half-time, but we’d ridden our luck.

“In the second half we were much better but, when we had a purple patch, we didn’t take our chances which was disappointing.”

With regular No1 Steve Mowthorpe unavailable, Spanish goalkeeper Victor Silvestre stepped in and was beaten by a 41st-minute Ricky Johnson opener followed by second-half strikes from Felipe Barcelos and Darius Browne in front of a 405 crowd.

We conceded a sloppy second goal, but then we had a couple of chances – and they were good chances too - through Nick Watts and Nathaniel Sherborne, but we just couldn’t score,” rued Hollick.

“Mark Lilley, on as sub, had the chance to drill one, but he squared to Sherbs and someone got in a block tackle.

“If we’d made it 2-1 it would have changed the complexion of the game, but the pressure’s on Banbury to get automatic promotion and they went up the other end and scored a third.”

The fixtures don’t get any easier for 14th-placed Totton who host Cinderford on Tuesday and fourth-placed Swindon Supermarine on Saturday.

“We’ll see,” said Hollick. “It’s one of those where we’re building for next season and we need to think about how we’re going to approach it.

“But, at the same time, we want to go into it with a bit of momentum and with an identity and idea of how we’re going to play.

“There were some positives to come out of today, but we're not kidding ourselves. We know there’s an awful lot of work to do for next season.”

Mowthorpe is unavailable again for the Cinderford match and injury doubts remain over Jack Alexander and Mark Gamble, who both missed Saturday, and Liam Hibberd (knee).