AFC Portchester strike star Lee Wort's third chance to reach significant season goal milestone in Wessex Premier battle with Bashley

The Royals marksman has stood on 29 goals for the campaign in his side's past two outings - failing to find the net in trips to AFC Stoneham or Amesbury in order to take him through the 30-goal barrier.

Wort, whose 29 strikes have come in 34 appearances this term, had the ball in the net in the midweek 2-0 win at bottom-side Amesbury - only for his effort to be ruled out for offside.

And after being denied on a couple of other occasions, boss Dave Carter is finally hoping to see his hitman reach 30 goals when they entertain Wessex League Premier sixth-placed Bashley on Saturday.

But the Royals boss did reveal his leading scorer has been complaining of a tight groin in recent weeks, although he expects him to be raring to go in pursuit of a personal season goal milestone this weekend.

Carter said: ‘Lee’s a little bit tight, to be fair, his groin is a little bit tight, which he has mentioned.

‘He scored Tuesday night (at Amesbury) but the linesman disallowed it, I think he had three cleared off the line and the keeper has pulled off a great save from him as well.

‘It’s one more to hit the 30, his groin has been a little bit tight, hopefully he’ll have a bit of a rest and is ready for Bashley.’

Eight-placed Portchester have the chance to close the gap on two places-above Bashley to just a point should they come out top in their The OnSite Group Stadium meeting.

And Carter feels it would provide another significant step forward for his side if they were to extend their 11-game unbeaten run with a win this weekend.

He added: ‘These (Bashley) will be young, quick, energetic - that’s what I’m expecting of them - they’re a very good side who are up and around it.

‘They’ve played less games than us, but we’ve got to forget about the beginning of the season when we hadn’t started so well and think about our form now - I don’t they’ll be many teams out there thinking, ‘we want to play Portchester,’ at the moment.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

Get 30 per cent off our sport subscription, which gives readers unlimited access to all our Pompey and grassroots coverage for just 9p a day, by using the promo code JanSports30. The deal expires at midnight on January 31.