The Moles started the campaign as one of the favourites for the title after finishing third last season and strengthening well over the summer.

But they have been unable to live up to their pre-season billing and currently sit 11th in the table with just 10 wins from 23 matches.

“We have underachieved this season,” acknowledges Herridge. “We have had some bad luck in certain areas, had a few players leave that we didn’t want and then a few injuries, but we have 15 games left now and we need to put a run together.

“Look at our results, the games we have lost have been by the odd goal, we could easily have won a lot of them but we have had a problem putting the ball in the net.

“Our goals conceded column is one of the best in the league but the goals scored is down there with the worst, if you are not scoring goals you put pressure on the defence and teams are going to get chances to score.

“We need to score more goals, not just strikers but the whole team.

“The midfielders need to weigh in with a few more, the centre halves haven’t been as big a threat from set pieces as we wanted so we will be setting them some targets for the rest of the season.

“We need to take one game at a time, need to pick off the sides above us, and I still think top six is achievable.

“We wanted higher at the start of season but top six is attainable.” The Moles were without a game at the weekend after their Premier Division match at Shrivenham was unexpectedly postponed.

The game looked set to get the green light after the Shrivenham groundstaff worked hard to get the pitch up to scratch.

But the referee deemed that the pitch was unsafe for play, despite protests from both sides that they wanted the game to go ahead.

“It was really frustrating,” said Herridge. “The guys at Shrivenham got up early, worked hard on the pitch and got a local referee in to look at it and he deemed it playable.

“When we arrived my first thought was how good the pitch looked considering the rain we have had. But there was a small area with some sand on and that was the referee’s concern.

“If we had 20 referees down there then 19 would have played the game but not the one we had.

“In these days of health and safety the referee is probably worried that if something happens on that small area he would be sued but I’m sure the players would have been happy to sign a piece of paper to say they wouldn’t do that.” Herridge is hoping it is a different story this Saturday when the Moles are set to host Cheltenham Saracens (3pm ko).

They are due to be without the injured Joel Havermans for the clash while Tom Hopper and James Rusby are suspended following their red cards against Windsor FC.

The Moles then go to Reading Town in the league next Tuesday (7.45pm ko).