A MUCH-CHANGED Corsham Town side slipped to a narrow 1-0 defeat when they entertained near neighbours Devizes Town.

It is the second time in as many games that Trevor Rawlings’ side have been beaten by a solitary strike, as they also fell to defeat by the same scoreline at home to Radstock Town seven days earlier.

Corsham have been hampered by a spate of injuries in recent weeks and Rawlings was forced to field an inexperienced side at Nursteed Road.

Despite the mass changes, Corsham were in the contest for a lengthy period and shaded the action in the first half.

However, Devizes grew into the game after the restart and Rob Mitchell’s strike was enough to clinch the points for the home side.

Rawlings said: “We played the reserves because we’ve got so many players out at the moment.

“Our reserve team manager was centre half and we gave a few of the younger lads a chance to play a bit of first-team football.

“Kieron Gleed was injured on Saturday. He’s done his shoulder again and I think he will now be out for a while.

“And Sam Ockwell was unavailable because he was in Florida, they’ve been two good players for us season so to miss them both was a big loss.

“It wasn’t a great game to be honest. We had the better of the play in first half without causing them too many problems and then they managed to get the only got in the second half.

“There weren’t really many bright spots for us. There wasn’t much we could take out of the game and look to build on moving forwards.”

Corsham have two more local derbies this weekend and entertain Chippenham Park on Good Friday before making the short trip to Westbury United on Easter Monday.

Rawlings is hopeful of fielding a stronger side than which featured at Devizes but the ongoing injury problem at the Southbank is a big worry.

He said: “Hopefully there will be a couple of players who missed the game back for Park but if there aren’t we will give these younger lads another chance to get out there and play.”