Although a victory against arch-rivals Devonshire Colts in tonight's Friendship Trophy would be nice, for Somerset Trojans the performance is just as, if not more, important.

The club face the Colts at Devonshire Rec (9.00 p.m.) on the back of an impressive 2-0 league victory over PHC on Sunday and are looking at tonight's match as a yardstick for future games.

They are currently fifth in the table, five points adrift of their third-placed opponents.

But look at the division the other way round and the Trojans are almost as close to the relegation zone -- just six points shy of bottom placed Southampton Rangers.

"Our primary focus is to improve our position in the league,'' said coach, Norbert Simons. "We will use this game as a measuring stick to see how much more we need to improve.'' Simons said despite his team's victory and the fact Colts struggled to beat Rangers at the weekend, he anticipated a tough match tonight.

"With the old rivalry between Somerset and Devonshire Colts it is always going to be a challenge,'' he said. "There's a lot of history between these two teams. Colts have had the better of us for all of this season so we are expecting it to be another hard-fought match again.'' Though the players were feeling confident after their victory over the Zebras, Simons said he would not allow them to become complacent.

"We are taking one match at a time and will try and play as positive as possible and let the chips fall where they may,'' he said.

"It was a good morale boost for us (on Sunday). We know we won't get any easy matches. Our destiny is in our hands, if we fail to show up to play we will suffer the consequences.

"A victory (tonight) would be nice but the performance is even more important.'' Simons said he didn't anticipate any major changes to the line-up although the club had said goodbye to two of their college players.

Colts, meanwhile, could be forced into a change up front after lanky striker Sullivan Phillips had to leave the clash on Sunday.

Phillips, whose unpredictability caused problems for the Rangers defence, took a nasty knock to the ankle and left the Southampton Oval by ambulance.

Coach Ray Jones will be hoping a win tonight will kick starts Colts' end of season charge.

They initially struggled against Southampton's more physical approach on Sunday and then when they did assert their superiority missed chance after chance.

The second-half sending off of Coolridge Durham didn't help their cause and they had to settle for a last minute deflected goal by substitute Vic Ball to bag the three points.