Skipper Stuart Whitehead believes AFC Telford United’s enforced winter break could end up helping their Blue Square North promotion challenge.

Telford have not played since December 28, when they went down 2-0 at Hinckley, and that will have extended to almost three weeks by the time of Farsley Celtic on Saturday.

But Whitehead feels the period of rest has allowed them to put their disappointing run of form behind them and start afresh.

“I think it may have refreshed us all,” he said. “Having a little bit of time off might actually turn out to have been a good thing.

“Our results have been a bit topsy-turvy this season, and it has affected confidence.

“But when we finally get back to playing, we’ll all have had some time off and it is like a fresh start. Hopefully we can make the most of it by going out and expressing ourselves.”

The Telford captain insists promotion remains the objective this season – and that they would be extremely disappointed to not at least make the play-offs.

That now looks a tough target as they go into the second half of the campaign down in ninth place, though they are just four points adrift of the fourth and final play-off berth.

“We know that what we’ve got ahead of us is very tough,” he added.

“The minimum expectation of this club is to make the play-offs – if we don’t do that then the season will be seen as a failure.

“We know we have got to go on an unbelievable run to get back into contention, but we’ve got some great fixtures coming up to try and do that.”

Chairman Lee Carter today admitted the snow which fell overnight and continued today had left Saturday’s home game with Farsley Celtic in major doubt.

Should the game be postponed, it would extend the Bucks spell without a game to more than three weeks.