IT IS very satisfying and a great achievement by the lads to make the play-offs. It shows we must have been very consistent over 40-odd games – I don’t think we have ever been out of the top eight. But we haven't won anything yet.

In the play-offs we now either play AFC Totton on Tuesday or Windsor & Eton on Wednesday.

Of course, we won’t know who we are playing and where we are going until after Windsor and VT FC play the final game on Monday night.

Now, here is my whinge. How can it be acceptable that we do not know our opponents for an important game like a play-off until 10pm on Monday night, when it could mean a trip to Totton less than 24 hours later.

What if one of my lads goes into work on Tuesday morning and asks to finish at 3pm because he has a big game in the evening and is told he can’t have the time off.

We like to think we do things professionally at Cirencester and we invest money in our pitch so that we can finish the season on time. We are being penalised because others have not been able to fulfill their fixtures in the correct time.

I know it is a tough ask to win three games in five days, but I have a sneaking feeling that Windsor will do that to win the title and we will be heading to Totton on Tuesday night for our play-off.

At least we don’t have to win on Saturday at Thatcham but it looked like we might after our dreadful first-half performance against Hayes on Tuesday.

The second half was as good as the first half was bad, and although we were livelier from the break – after we had got cross with them in the team talk – the real difference happened when Jody and Browner came on.

I had wanted to save them until Saturday because Jody is still being troubled with his hamstring and Browner has sore ribs, but we needed some fresh faces.

We also saw the two sides of Scott Griffin. When Griff plays well, we play well; when Griff doesn’t play well, neither do we as a team. We all flourish when he plays well and that’s what happened in the second half. He poached his two goals well and then Jody has curled one in from over near the corner flag.

In the end it was pretty comfortable but at half-time I just could not see where the sparkle was going to come from. We looked dead on our feet and some of them appeared to be letting the occasion get to them.

Jason Welsh is now banned for three games, but it does look as if we will get Zak Westlake back for Thatcham where he will have to prove his fitness for the play-offs.