MARK Collier admits that his Chippenham Town troops were fettered by fatigue as their sparkling start to the season lost some shine at Histon on Saturday.

The Bluebirds have been on fire in the opening two weeks of the new Evo-Stik League Southern Premier Division but their 100 per cent record came to an end as they were held to a goalless draw at the Glassworld Stadium.

However, unbeaten Chippenham remain the early pace-setters at the top of the table and Collier says that he always expected breaking down the Stutes to prove a tough task as the Cambridgeshire outfit looked to banish the spectre of their 7-1 humbling at the hands of Slough Town four days earlier.

“When you’re playing a team that’s had a bad result, anyone in football knows that there’s always a backlash,” said the Chippenham manager, who was without in-form striker Andy Sandell, who missed the game with a knee injury.

“They changed their system, put one up front and let us have the ball. Their aim was to stop us scoring and they achieved that.

“We’re disappointed with how we played and we see it as two points dropped.

“After a long trip to Poole on Tuesday and then a long journey to Histon, we looked tired and it seemed that the game came 48 hours too early for us. But we know that you have to travel in this division and we’re comfortable with that.

“If Charlie Austin isn’t playing for QPR, they’re always going to struggle and when you’ve got a striker that’s scored seven in four missing, then it’s a blow for you but we still got into positions where Andy Sandell would have and couldn’t finish them off.

“But we’re still unbeaten and we’re grateful for the start to the season we’ve had.

“There are managers waking this morning with two or three points and you’d much rather be in our position right now than having to play catch-up.

“We’d certainly have taken this at the start of the season on August 8 and long may it continue.”