Anyone making the near 600 mile round trip to Devon has clearly had this trip planned for some months or has the heart of a lion in the current climate .

The good news is that Exeter is a fine city for a weekend break although in the month of December it might not be at it's finest with the beer gardens overlooking the River Exe not in operation .

With Roberts and Earl missing through injury for a good number of weeks the already suspect defence is set to become even more suspect unless McCarthy is a better player than he's proved so far and fooled the last three HC's .

If Pines pulls up with yet another knock which given his history since he joined us is highly likely then Clarke is going to be really stuffed .

Recent weeks don't make much of a case for out scoring our way out of this either .

This is very much a rolling up of the sleeves job , sticking together and toughing it out .

Let's see who the big characters are in the weeks ahead .