JAMES Goddard wasn’t afraid to admit that Royal Wootton Bassett Ladies should target a second successive promotion come spring should their impressive South-West Premier Division form continue.

For the second time this month, Bassett controlled proceedings against Bideford by recording a comfortable three-goal win in north Devon.

An own goal coupled with strikes for Hayley Huckin and Lauren Kayll earned Bassett their fifth win of the season and placed them level on points with table topping Callington with a game in hand.

League fixtures against Bishops Lydeard, Middlezoy Rovers, Callington Town and Portishead Town sit between now and the turn of the new year.

And joint boss Goddard revealed picking up a strong haul of points from those quartet of games will see members of management at the Gerard Buxton ground turn an eye to earning promotion to the FA Women’s National League.

He said: “You never quite know how difficult the division will be at the start of the year – teams and players change around.

“We said we’d take a look at things in the new year and go from there.

“If we’re still competing at the top in the new year, who’s to say we can’t go on and win it.”

Only the champions in the 10-team South-West Premier Division will win promotion.

But Goddard and his girls will have some welcome respite from league commitments this weekend when hosting Melksham Town in the quarter final of the Wiltshire Women’s Cup.

Bassett enter the tie as strong favourites, particularly off the back of their 6-1 pre-season win against Melksham in July.

“We’ll rotate the squad this weekend, a few players are carrying knocks and they’ve had to play through it in the last month or so,” said Goddard.

“We believe we have some quality and depth in our squad – some young players are coming on well.

“We’ll use this opportunity. We played Melksham in pre-season, not that you can judge much from that.

“We’ll be clear favourites, there’s no getting away from that. We’ve got to be professional and get the job done.”

Unfortunately for Swindon Town Women, their FAWNL Division One South-West at home to Exeter City was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.