DEVIZES Town entertain midtable Exmouth Town on Saturday hoping to end a miserable run of five consecutive defeats.

The Nursteed Road club's promising early season form has melted away and two defeats in four days last week saw them drop into the bottom three.

Last Saturday,s crunch basement battle with Elmore fell foul of the weather giving Dave Hopkins' men some rest before the busy Christmas schedule.

Saturday's home match against seventh placed Exmouth is followed on Boxing Day with a trip to local rivals Melksham Town.

Devizes are then scheduled to host third placed Torrington on January 3 in what will be another tough fixture.

Despite Exmouth's points advantage over Devizes the Nursteed Road club do have a psychological edge after winning the reverse fixture back in August.

Although they had to spend four hours on the road in heavy traffic the Devizes players looked keen to put their off field troubles behind them and kick-off the new season in style.

Devizes had chances in the first half but the score-sheet remained blank the break.

After the restart Hopkins' team upped the tempo and increased their possession and were rewarded with the only goal of the game in the 55th minute.

Hopkins is backing his players for a repeat of the opening day victory.

"This is our worst run all season, losing five on bounce, and the longer it goes on the harder it will get. But I am still getting Devizes people watching the games coming up to me and saying we were unlucky.

"You have got to make your own luck in this league and if we pull tight I'm still confident that we can bounce back from the last five games."

Devizes are set to be boosted with the return of Nathan Perkins from illness while Justin Lisle will be available after returning from university.