Finsbury Park head coach Gareth Chapman has called the season a ‘learning curve’ with promotion now looking out of reach as they head into a clash with Hitchin.

Park make the trip to Old Hale Way on Saturday looking to bounce back from their 19-3 defeat to Stevenage Town.

They currently sit fifth in London Three North West but are now 22 points adrift of leaders Old Streetonians.

"It's definitely a learning curve, we're playing against teams that have been established for decades, and some even centuries," Chapman said.

"It's learning about what we've been up against this season, the teams we've been up against, and even just learning from the clubs as a whole and the way they go about their business, then making sure we put it in motion to go into next season positive."

Chapman is determined for his squad to pick up a victory in this weekend's away fixture and finish the season as strong as they can.

"This is where it starts, last season they actually beat us twice, we beat them at the start of this year and the aim is that we beat them twice this year," he added.

"We know it's going to be a hard game, they've got a very big pack, so we need to make sure when we do get our opportunities this week that we take them."

The former player felt they let themselves down by not taking their chances as they lost 19-3 to third-place Stevenage Town at the weekend in a match played in tricky conditions due to Storm Dennis.

"It was not the result that we obviously went out there for, the weather played its part but we know we left a lot of points out there," he said.

"Even after the game the referee and their coach spoke to us, it wasn't a 19-3 game, but the fact is they took their chances and we didn't on the weekend.

"We paid for that more than anything else."

He added: "We just weren't clinical enough, we got into positions to be clinical, but dropped balls and little mistakes let us down.

"It give us something to work on in training but we must keep our heads up to keep fighting to finish as high up this league as we can."

Park have six fixtures remaining and will still be looking to chase some of the front-runners.