IT may not have been seventh time lucky for Devizes Town on Friday but manager Dave Hopkins is praying for any slice of good fortune that will end his team's barren run.

Defeat on Boxing Day at the hands of local rivals Melksham Town meant the Nursteed Road club have lost seven league matches in a row.

While Hopkins has been able to take positives from his players' displays in a number of recent games he admits it is no substitute for getting three points on the board.

This Saturday Devizes Town are at home to Torrington in what Hopkins expects will be another testing afternoon.

Torrington currently lie seventh in the table but have two games in hand on pace-setters Bideford and Brislington and four games in hand on sixth-placed Odd Down.

Hopkins' men are third from bottom having won five and lost 14 games this season. They are comfortably ahead of fellow strugglers Elmore and Dawlish Town but defeat at Melksham on Boxing Day saw them slip four points behind their neighbours.

Hopkins said: "We've got Torrington on Saturday which is certainly going to be a tough one. But our bad run of results has got to end soon and hopefully it will be this weekend. To be honest I don't care how we get the first win. At the moment we'll take any win however it comes."

Hopkins is hoping to introduce two new faces to the squad before Saturday in a bid to re-ignite his sides floundering campaign.

He has identified the players he wants to bring in but is refusing to name names until the players have signed on the dotted line.

"Hopefully we will have two new signings in for the weekend," the manager added. "One is a centre forward and the other is a centre half. We are just waiting for the ink to dry on both of those."

Melksham won the local bragging rights on Boxing Day thanks to an Owen Bryan hat-trick. It was the away team who performed better during a tense match but missed chances cost them and Melksham hit back late on.

Hopkins could not hide his frustration at the result which was his side's seventh defeat on the bounce.

"We absolutely dominated the game and should have won," he said. "In the second half we had six, seven or eight chances from five to ten yards and missed them all. When you dominate like that and don't score it only encourages the other team to come back at you."

Hopkins added: "The positives are that we have dominated the game and have created the chances. But we are still conceding goals."

Melksham's boss Nigel Tripp was chuffed to get the three points in the bag to arrest his side's own lull in form.

But he accepted Hopkins' men had been the better side.

"I am happy with the result but we didn't play too well," he said. "It was quite a tense game and they had at least three good chances to put the game out of reach. I felt it was a dubious penalty that put them in front. It must have been a good game to watch but not from the dugout. Devizes deserved to win it with their chances but we had bottle and rolled our sleeves up."

With both sides lying perilously close to the foot of the table the match was always going to be a tense affair. It was the visitors who found their feet quickest and took the lead in the 12th minute.

Player-manager Dave Hopkins took advantage of some static home defending to score from close range.

Devizes again went close when Steve Campbell shot just wide but Melksham were still a threat and Brian Kyall headed just over from a corner.

Play was disrupted when the referee was forced to retire from the match but it was Melksham who restarted the better and Owen Bryan equalised with a spectacular overhead kick.

The drama continued in the second half as the momentum swung back in the favour of Devizes. They were awarded a penalty for handball and Steve Campbell kept his composure to fire his side back in front.

The critical period of the match came when David Lloyd had three clear chances to put Devizes out of sight.

But he failed to find the net and Melksham made Devizes rue the misses as Bryan equalised for a second time after 71 minutes.

Then came the late drama as Melksham substitute Dan Harvey won a 90th minute penalty after being fouled in the area.

Bryan stepped up and made no mistake from the spot.