ANDY KING has challenged his players to prise at least seven points from Town's festive fixtures and Rory Fallon wants to provide the goals which will make for a happy Christmas at the County Ground.

Fallon's first league goal for Town was not enough to prevent a shattering last-gasp defeat by Plymouth Argyle on Saturday.

It was the club's third match without a win and left them five points adrift of the play-off places.

Although all is not lost by any means, the Town boss knows his team cannot afford to start 2004 with a meagre yuletide haul.

He said: "The Plymouth defeat makes it imperative that we go into the Christmas period and get some very good results.

"I mean that we probably have to get seven points from the three fixtures, two of which are away and the home match with Brighton.

"That is the challenge to the players to get us back on track to where we want to be."

Fallon will be hoping to figure prominently in Town's forthcoming fixtures.

Ahead of the Plymouth game, King had said the former Barnsley man was 'close' to a start and a goal against the Pilgrims will not have done his starting prospects any harm.

Fallon set himself a scoring target with Barnsley at the start of the season and he remains confident he can achieve it.

He said: "I set myself a target of 15 and I still believe I can reach that target. You just try and get as many as you can.

"I think we can achieve the manager's points target over Christmas as long as we remain strong and take our chances."

Despite Saturday's defeat, supporters were at least relieved to see midfielder Sammy Igoe get through the match without any problems.

Speaking last night, the 28-year-old said: "I was obviously disappointed with the result and I should have scored in the first half when I tried to curl a shot around the keeper but other than that I felt fine.

"The wrist feels okay and it was great to be back out there again."

Town reserves are back in action tomorrow afternoon when they travel to Swansea City in the Pontin's Holidays Combination.

The match kicks off at 2pm.