BUDE player/coach, Angus Hodges, admits he won’t be ‘counting his chickens’ on a slip-up from Penryn or Honiton in the race for promotion from the Tribute Cornwall and Devon League ahead of their trip to struggling Plymouth Argaum on Saturday (2.30pm).

The Bencoolen Meadow outfit have enjoyed a fantastic campaign to sit in third, four points off leaders Penryn and just a point behind Honiton with four games remaining.

However, with all three sides having played each other twice already, Hodges (pictured right) expects his men to be competing in Step Eight again when the new season begins in September.

He said: “Unfortunately promotion is out of our hands so we’ll play the best rugby we can for the last four games and hopefully make up as many points as we can. But we can only expect Penryn and Honiton to do the same, we’re not counting our chickens.

“Without trying to sound negative, there’s no reason to think that either of them will lose any of their final four games. But, there has been some upsets already this year, hence why we’ve got to take as many points as we can and hope for the best.”

Honiton’s final fixtures see them go to fourth-placed Plymstock Albion Oaks on Saturday before they welcome South Molton and Topsham either side of an away trip to Tavistock.

Leaders Penryn face three of the current bottom four before entertaining Plymstock Albion Oaks in on the final day (April 13).

Bude on the other hand have home games with Plymstock and Tavistock either side of a difficult test at South Molton.

Hodges is also hoping to give as many minutes as possible to his squad over the coming weeks.

He said: “We’re kind of trying to look forward to next season really and do as much preparation as we can now to make the off season as seamless as possible.

“Regardless of whether we’re in this league or the league above, we’re going to need to start strong as we do have a bit of a track record of taking our time to get into the season.”

Bude put in an excellent performance to see off fourth-bottom Pirates Amateurs 53-7 in their last outing 12 days ago, and Hodges wants to see more of the same at Bickleigh Down against a side who are second bottom and 11 points off safety.

He said: “It’s never nice to turn up to a game and them rollover and I don’t expect them to do so. It’ll do us good to have some healthy competition in the last few games just to keep us focused and make sure we’re taking steps forward.

“So I’m hoping that we’ll turn up and try to finish the season well, and we usually up our game when the opposition does.”

Bude have lost just twice on their travels this term at Torquay Athletic and Honiton, and Hodges believe’s there’s a big reason why.

He said: “As a team this year we’ve done really well with our away fixtures. The level of support we get at these games has really helped us get some good away wins which has been a bit of a problem for us in the past.”

With the likes of Tully Innes and Ryan Butler now back in town, Hodges has more options at his disposal.

He said: “We’ve had a couple of players come in quite late in the season. At the moment it’s not quite so much a case of trying to improve our play but also bringing them up to speed ahead of the summer.

“I’d like to think that we’ll have a similar squad to the Pirates game, but we’re also trying to give the returning players as much game time as possible over the next few weeks.”