MISTLEY Cricket Club skipper Dan Goff hopes recent history repeats itself as his side prepare for the second half of their Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship campaign.

The Swans are languishing second from bottom in division one with just two wins from their opening ten matches.

Their most recent setback was Saturday’s 110-run defeat at title-chasing Woolpit.

However, Mistley’s scenario is not an unfamiliar one and in the last two years they have struggled in the opening weeks of the season before staging a revival.

Now Goff hopes the same happens again and he wants to kick-start the recovery with a victory from this weekend’s north Essex derby at Wivenhoe.

“In the last two years, we’ve started badly and then gone on a really good run,” said the New Road captain.

“For some reason we don’t seem to start playing until July!

“It’s partly down to personnel and having key players back from university and school.

“Tim Scott, for instance, is back now and with players like him in the side we’re only going to get stronger.

“Luckily other sides in the table are also losing.

“We need to start picking up wins, though, and, ideally, I’d say we need to win three of our next five.

“We’re definitely capable of that and we’re only at the halfway point in the season, so there’s no need to panic yet.

“When you’re winning you build momentum and find different ways to win matches but when you’re losing and down there in the table things go against you.”

Goff felt there was a prime example of that on Saturday.

He felt Woolpit’s Oliver Whiteman should have been dismissed in the second over – and then had to watch on as the opening batsman accumulated 132.

It played a monumental part in the Suffolk side making 290 for eight from their 40 overs, with Tim Scott returning three wickets for 59 runs and Goff three for 60.

In reply, the Swans were all out for 180, in the 42nd over.

Stuart Baker contributed 55 and Stuart Dove 41.

“When you’re down the bottom, you don’t get any luck and that was certainly the case on Saturday,” said Goff.

“Their opener should have been out from the very first ball he faced.

“He definitely nicked it to first slip but didn’t walk and it wasn’t given.

“It was such a big moment because, aside from that, I didn’t think there was much between the sides.

“Our low score was mainly because of scoreboard pressure.

“We had to go for it and that led to wickets, but had we been chasing a more modest total it would have been different.

“Despite losing, we can still take some encouragement from our performance against Woolpit.

“They’re sitting second in the table and a former East Anglian Premier League team.”

Mistley are still without experienced bowler Ian Morton, who tore his bicep in May.

Goff hopes he will be fit and available again in three or four weeks.