Mark Bartley has urged his Marlow players to maintain their rich vein of form and secure a top half finish in Southern One Central.

The Blues manager has battled against a catalogue of injuries to his first team squad throughout the season and has rarely been able to field what he considers to be his best XI.

Since the turn of the year Marlow have lost just three times in 11 games and have climbed up to 12th in the standings, but that isn’t enough to satisfy Bartley.

He said: “Finishing in the top half would be nice and I think we’re capable of doing it. We’ve got a good enough side; we need a bit of luck with injuries which has been our problem all season.

“What we’ve shown is that when we’ve got out full team available we’re more than a match for anyone. If we can keep everybody fit, keep performing to the standards we’ve set in the last few games and keep the momentum going then it will definitely be a possibility.

“We’ll try and make the most of our games in hand when they come about and see where we go.”

On Saturday Marlow returned home from a trip to runaway leaders Kettering Town with a creditable 0-0 draw, a team who are 12 points clear at the summit.

Bartley’s team had beaten Town 3-2 back in September at Oak Tree Road and the manager thought his team could have again collected all three points.

“We beat Kettering earlier in the season at home, we know what they’re about and we went there and we’ve come away with a point but we were disappointed that it wasn’t three,” he said.

“We had one cleared off the line, we hit the cross bar and our keeper has only had one save to make. Again we’ve show our ability and what we’re capable of doing. It’s just important for the boys that they stay in this vain of form and give us a chance to finish the season strongly.

“It was a pleasing point on the face of it and to be fair to the Kettering guys afterwards they were pretty complimentary about the way we had played.”

Ninth place Godalming Town were dispatched 2-0 on Tuesday night thanks to Lee Barney’s second half brace, the latter of which came after defender Dan Hicks had been shown a second yellow card with 20 minutes remaining.

The hard fought victory sets Marlow up perfectly for the visit of Royston Town tomorrow, according to their manager who is also keen to put to bed an unwanted record.

He said: “Royston are a good side and since I’ve been at Marlow we’ve never taken a point off them so I’m quite keen to end that run.

“We’re in good shape going into the game and we’ll be doing all we can to try and make sure we spoil their party.

“They’re looking at it like they need the three points to stay in the play-off picture and we’ll be looking to really put them under pressure and get ourselves a positive result.”