WITHAM Town manager Adam Flint says his team must look at Ryman League division north champions Brightlingsea Regent as a blueprint for success as they look for their own promotion glory next year.

There will be a home date for Witham tomorrow as they conclude their division north season with a visit from struggling Waltham Abbey.

It will give Flint’s team a chance to finish their campaign on a positive note after four back-to-back defeats in the last few weeks.

That run continued over the Easter weekend with a 1-0 defeat at Brentwood Town on Bank Holiday Monday that followed a 5-0 loss against Brightlingsea on Good Friday.

Flint was disappointed to see his side conceded five goals in the latter stages of the game against Regent, but feels his players can learn important lessons from the way the new champions operated.

“We did well for 60 minutes,” said Flint “In the first half, they had a few chances and they put us under pressure, but I felt we dealt with it well.

“We had chances ourselves and in the second half, we were just getting on it as the game was getting a bit stretched, but Tyler Hayes got injured and we had to make changes, which just seemed to stop us.

“Billy Hunt then hit a great goal from 30 yards for them and we conceded two more straight away as it got away from us.

“We huffed and puffed after that, but they were ruthless and I said that to my players that we need to be like them.

“You could see that they are a team who have been together for a while and they have that mentality that they don’t know how to lose.

“I emphasised that to my lot after the game.

“Brightlingsea have good players but they work so hard and it was a good learning curve for us looking forward to next year.

“I don’t think it was a five-nil game, but we have to learn from it.”

Witham were unable to respond from that defeat by Brightlingsea with a positive result at Brentwood on Monday and while the younger players who came in, as Flint made changes, impressed their boss, he felt more senior players didn’t acquit themselves well.

Flint added: “I decided that I wanted to play some of the younger players and I felt they all came out with credit.

“Brentwood are fighting and they have got some good players, but we had Liam Whipps in there and he did well, while Chi (Chinedu Osadebe) had a couple of good chances. What disappointed me, though, was that some of the senior players let us down a bit. Some of them just strolled around and it wasn’t really good and it was disappointing to lose.

“We now want to finish on a positive against Waltham Abbey and we will play a team that I think will work hard.

“We will go as strong as we can. A good finish will give us something to take into next year so we want to make sure we end on a high and I want boys to prove to me that they want to be here next year.”

Lewis Payne will miss the final game as he is running the London Marathon on Sunday, as is Witham assistant manager James Robinson.