March Town boss Bartlett says Hares have turned a corner after three successive wins

March Town manager Chris Bartlett has said his Hares side have turned a corner in 2016 - and on current form, it is hard to argue with his view.

The Hares’ form coming into the New Year - five defeats from six league games - left a lot to be desired, but since the turn of the year, March have hit a real purple patch.

Three wins from three and a place in the semi-finals of the First Division KO Cup are all in the bag for Barlett’s boys, and the Hares gaffer expressed his disappointment that his men couldn’t take their chance to make it four wins after not having a game last weekend.

He said: “It’s not always so nice to have a break. We’ve had a good run of wins lately and it would have been nice to have a chance to keep the run going but having the week off did give us the chance to rest a few knocks.

“That’s just the way the league works sometimes, but we always want to be playing games.”

March will have wanted to use the momentum gained from their heroic penalty shoot-out victory over table-toppers Wivenhoe Town, but Bartlett is hoping they can carry it over to their clash with Dereham Town Reserves tomorrow afternoon.

“We want to push on,” he said. “We’ve really turned a corner since our bad spell at the end of last year where we couldn’t find a win.”

Dereham sit four places below March in 15th in the Thurlow Nunn Division One table, but Bartlett is wary of his side’s opposition.

The visitors beat March 2-1 in the reverse fixture back in October, and the Hares boss admitted that he doesn’t know what to expect when the Norfolk side visit the GER on Saturday (3pm).

“You never know with reserve teams in this league,” Bartlett said.

“The last time we played Dereham they put out a strong team with a few first team players, so we don’t know what sort of side will turn up on Saturday.”