HOLDERS Winsford United must beat a bogey team this weekend to continue the defence of their North West Counties League Challenge Cup title.

Blues host Ramsbottom in Saturday’s third round seeking to end a sequence of poor results against the Premier Division promotion favourites.

“They always seem to get the right result against us,” said Winsford boss Ian Street.

“But we don’t want to hand over the trophy just yet, which I hope spurs the players on this weekend.”

Blues defeated New Mills in last year’s showpiece to win the competition for the first time.

They had been runners-up the previous term.

Ramsbottom have won already at Barton Stadium this term, a 2-0 success back in September, as well as sending Blues out of the FA Cup last season.

Street said: “We’ll need to be at our best to keep our interest in the tie going.

“It would help us if there was a big crowd behind us.”

Winsford have not played since losing 2-1 at home to Barnoldswick last month, postponements of matches against Bacup and Atherton LR following since.

Both teams play this weekend’s cup clash after a fortnight off.

Street said: “We’ve been training as much as we can.

“I gave the players a day off last weekend because they had worked so hard in previous sessions.

“We’ve had a friendly on a 3G surface against Woodley too, which was a good workout against strong opposition.”

He will be without long-term injury absentee Sam McKay for Saturday’s encounter, while Daley Woods (back) is a doubt.

Captain Lee Jones could figure though after playing for an hour in last week’s friendly.

“It’s great to have him back,” added Street.