BASHLEY'S shrinking band of senior players suffered two more blows on Saturday when Dave Wakefield limped off injured and skipper Chris Ferrett was red-carded in the 2-0 home defeat by Molesey.

Wakefield was almost certainly ruled out of this afternoon's trip to Newport IoW after making an early exit with the recurrence of an old knee problem.

"Dave thinks it's the same thing that required an operation some time ago and he was pessimistic on Saturday that he wouldn't play again this season.

"Let's hope he's just jarred it and he'll be able to shake it off," said boss Geoff Butler.

Ferrett's uncharacteristic dismissal came shortly after James Mepham had capitalised on a Paul Gazzard error to fire Molesey 2-0 up. It completed a disastrous two-minute collapse for the Foresters who were still reeling from Phil Williams' 54th-minute opener.

"It was just the frustration of it all that got to Chris," said Butler. "Molesey weren't a good side by any stretch of the imagination, but we had a lethargy about us that we couldn't get rid of and we never troubled them.

"At half-time I couldn't see them scoring, but we made a couple of errors at the back.

"Then, just after we've gone 2-0 down, Chris has tried to beat a Molesey player up the line and this fella's checked him. It erred on the side of a free kick to us, but nothing's been given and then this fella's got in front of Chris to shepherd the ball out of play and Chris has kicked him. He knew he'd done wrong, but it was typical of the disappointment of the day and it ended any hope of us getting back into the match."