It may be out of their hands now but Nigel Burgess, the Hamilton Parish goalkeeper, still believes his side can win their first Premier Division title.

Parish have taken just a point from their past three games, losing to Southampton Rangers and Somerset Trojans, and managing just a draw with struggling St George’s. The run of results has left them four points adrift of Trojans with three games remaining.

Now Burgess and his team-mates need some help from other teams, but they don’t have an easy run in, with matches against title rivals Dandy Town and PHC ahead, and Robin Hood also on the horizon.

In fact, Town are in a position to move level on points with Parish ahead of their showdown on Sunday at St John’s Field. Before that Town meet Robin Hood tomorrow night at Goose Gosling Field, knowing that another three points will move them ahead of the Zebras and in a two-way tie for second place with Parish, the highest position all season for the defending champions.

“We’ve definitely slipped up in the last few weeks and Sunday’s loss was a hard loss, very undeserving to come up with nothing after the 90 minutes,” Burgess said.

“Our team, fans and coaching staff felt it as well, that it isn’t in our hands anymore. But we don’t think the race is over, Somerset have a hard road to go, similar to us, and anything can happen. That’s what make champions, pursuing it to the end.”

Parish though have been in this position before, and Burgess believes they can take heart from that.

“A few seasons ago when we won our first First Division title [2007-08] we were in a similar position when we needed St David’s to drop points in their last three games and it happened and we won the title on the last day against X-Roads,” he said.

Trojans’ victory against Parish came at a price, as they had two players — defender Jensen Rogers and goal scorer Dion Stovell — sent off which rules them out of Friday night’s home game with Devonshire Cougars. After that Somerset have to play North Village away and Southampton Rangers at home and Burgess hopes they drop points in two of those games.

“It’s possible to still win the league but we need help,” Burgess said. “And also we have to take care of our games as well and if we don’t do that it won’t matter.

“It will be interesting to see how it plays out but we’re confident we can hang on and put some pressure on Somerset.”

In November, Parish won three straight matches against Somerset, Robin Hood and PHC to climb up the table, only to lose to Southampton Rangers and Dandy Town in December, two teams then in the relegation zone. Three more wins in January saw them regain the momentum before the loss to Rangers on February 1 started another slump.

“We always knew it would go down to the wire,” Burgess said.