COUNT your blessings...Milkwall's positive manager Graham Clements says this unexpected result was, in reality, a bonus for the club!

Being out of the cup means the way is open to concentrate entirely on the club's burning ambition to win the North Gloucester League's premier title. For, above all else, Milkwall want to be playing Senior League football next season.

So the message to Milkwall's down-in-the-mouth players after Saturday's game was not a massive dressing down but a pick-me-up. "My approach is that the result will enable us to avoid the usual end of season fixture congestion. Now we are free to put every effort we? can into winning the league," says Clements.

The J O Roberts Cup result was a shock, admits Clements.

"We had beaten Lydney earlier in the season but it would be fair to say they were not the same team. Collectively we tried hard and we hit the crossbar and the uprights but if we had played until Monday I don't think we would have scored...it was one of those games," he said.

There were top performances by centre-half Ryan Callow and midfielder Steve Blaby but it was Lydney's day as Milkwall slipped to only their second defeat of the season.

Clements took over at Milkwall last season when they were third from bottom. He immediately strengthened the squad and only lost out on promotion on goal difference.

Proud of the Milkwall set-up, he says the club has progressed both on and off the field with excellent facilities and a much improved playing surface.

The runaway goal-scoring success this season has been striker Craig Morgan with 23, while Julian Saunders, formerly with Chepstow Town, has been outsçtanding – "a quality player," says Clements.

"We have strength in depth and we are starting to get some support from the local area. It is very promising and I'm convinced we can make our mark in the Senior League. I played for Milkwall as a 14 year-old and that was 25 years ago. In all that time we have been in the North Gloucester League," he says.

Clements believes that the club could even achieve County League status.

"The present team is the best I have ever managed," he says.