SOUTHEND & EMT suffered an eight-wicket defeat against Ilford.

The defeat was Southend’s fifth in succession and frustrated their top scorer Joe Robbins.

“It was a very similar story for us, unfortunately,” said Robbins.

“We didn’t get off to a good start with the bat but credit must go to Ilford because they bowled very well and had the luxury of Asgard Zaidi to bowl from one end.

“We tried our best to bat out our overs but, again, only I managed to stick around for any considerable time.

“We scored 156 but that was never going to be enough against a team like Ilford.

“However, I have to give credit to our bowlers as I thought we bowled really well, especially Arafat (Bhuiyan) and Adam (Rendall) with the new ball and then Mo Rizvi had no luck whatsoever.”

Bottom of the table Southend now sit 72 points behind third from bottom Hadleigh & Thundersley in the Premier Division standings.

But Robbins is still keen to keep pushing.

“Being realistic, we are down so there’s no pressure on us whatsoever now and it’s five weeks where we can maybe play with a bit more freedom than we have previously,” said Robbins.

“We owe it to Tom (Phillippe) and ourselves to give it everything we have for the last few games but it’s been an extremely tough season. It started badly with the points deduction and we’ve never got going.

“We’ve got a very young side so hopefully this experience will help the younger players get a taste for this level of cricket and we can bounce back next season.”