PETERSFIELD Town will be heading to an unhappy hunting ground tonight as they look to progress in the Hampshire Senior Cup.

The Rams head to Wessex League Premier Division side AFC Portchester looking to avenge two cup defeats in the last two seasons at Wicor Rec.

Last season the Royals beat the Southern League outfit 3-1 in the quarter finals of the Russell Cotes Cup and in 2014-15 Portchester were 1-0 victors in the final of the Wessex League Cup.

Petersfield will be hoping it’s a case of third time lucky in the cups so they can progress into the third round of the county cup competition.

Chairman Graeme Moir said: “I don’t know what it is about going to AFC Portchester but we don’t seem to play very well when we go there.

“In the Wessex League Cup final we just had a huge off day and last season in the Russell Cotes Cup Portchester completely over powered us and outplayed us on the night.

“Portchester have been a good, strong side for a number of seasons now and they are always one of our most difficult opponents. I’m sure we are in for another tough match tonight.”

The Rams will go into the match though with renewed confidence after their 2-2 draw in the league at Marlow on Saturday.

Dan Simmonds’ first half goal put the Rams in front in the first half and his penalty put them back on level terms in the second and it looked like they would go on and get all three points late on.

The key now for Petersfield is to build on that point and start putting a run of results together as the squad grows in confidence.

Moir added: “We were excellent on Saturday and we need to take that forward into two important games for us this week – AFC Portchester in the cup tonight and Northwood in the league on Saturday.

“We have said for a long time now that we have nothing to fear in the Southern League and we are slowly building our confidence back up and starting to show that we have the ability to compete at that level.

“Portchester will be a very tough game for us but it is another opportunity for the players to get more game time together and keep building our play up.

“We will go into the game looking to build on Saturday’s result and keep that belief and confidence building throughout the squad.”