BOSS Jason Matthews has urged his Terras’ troops to take their FA Trophy chance tomorrow (3pm) as they bid for a place in the first round proper at home against Cray Wanderers.

Weymouth’s campaign in the competition has been tough work so far, with just one goal coming from open play in 300 minutes of football.

But having held their nerve on spot-kicks to seal a 5-4 shoot-out win over Burnham in the last round, the player-manager is not worried about how his side have progressed, as long as they are still involved.

He told Echosport: “We have had two tricky games to be fair.

“Shortwood are a bit of a cup side and Burnham gave us two tricky games, and we couldn’t break the deadlock against them, but we kept our nerve in the penalties.

“We have worked hard to get here and it would be silly to throw it away now.

“We have had a good run in the FA Cup, won a couple of games in the Trophy and beat Dorchester in the Red Insure Cup, so we are positive.

“I want to look after my boys because I feel they have done the business for me and long may that continue.”

On paper, the Terras are heavy favourites to scoop the £4,000 at stake tomorrow and progress to the next round at the expense of the Wands, who currently sit 23rd in the Ryman North Division.

But Matthews admitted the Kent-based club are a fairly unknown quantity to him.

“I don’t know a lot about them,” he added. “But we will treat them with respect.

“We are at home and they are below us so it is about what we do.

“Nigel Biddlecombe went and watched them for me on Tuesday. We leave no stone unturned and he did me a report on them.”

Matthews is hoping to have a fully fit squad available to him, even though he admitted the sickness bug that kept Chris Shephard out of action against Burnham last weekend is still around the camp.

The Terras’ chief also expressed his frustration in not being able to do battle with Dorset rivals Poole Town on Tuesday due to a waterlogged pitch.

“I am disappointed that it was off but at the end of the day we have a lot of home games coming up and one game could have wrecked the pitch for a long time,” he added.

“The boys have done a magnificent job and that pitch is probably up there with the top three in the league now.

“One 90 minutes could have wrecked a lot of people’s hard work. I urge the fans to get behind us tomorrow and see what we are trying to achieve here.”