JOHN MILLS is targetting his 40th goal this season after being left frustrated on the bench in recent weeks.

The 28-year-old striker has been in and out of Pete Beadle's starting 11 during the last three months following a knee injury in February.

Despite returning to the squad in March marksman Mills has been just a handful of starts during the last few months slowing his goal tally down.

He scored his 38th competitive goal of the season from the penalty spot after coming off the bench on Saturday and is now targetting the 40 goal tally ahead of Monday's Herefordshire FA County Cup final against Lads Club at Edgar Street (3pm).

“I’ve been fine for a while now but didn’t want to do any risk to it, said Mills.

“For any footballer you don’t really want to sit on the bench. There was nobody else going to have that penalty as I’ve been waiting for a goal for a while now.

“I want to try and get to 40, I’m on 38 so hopefully I’ll get two more on Monday. If I’d stayed fit I wanted to get 50 but having the injury and sitting on the bench I moved it down to 40."

Mills is already looking forward to the challenge of playing National League football next season whether it is North and South.

With Hereford scoring 111 league goals this season and Mills 27 of them the striker says that Hereford is the perfect place for any striker.

He added: “We’ll get through the summer and see what happens whether it’s North, South or whatever we will come to it pre-season and we’ll be ready.

“So far we’ve accomplished everything we’ve wanted to and the challenges we’ve rose to so hopefully we can do it again.

“The higher you go the better players are going to be but we’re lucky here that we create so many chances that as a striker if you’ve got half a brain about you, you will still get on the end of a few and get a few goals.

“You don’t want to be at any other club than this for chances, you get loads of goals from me, Lance (Smith), Mike (Symons), Keyon (Reffell) everybody has chipped in.

“We create four or five chances every game.”

Beadle said that in preparation for the game his side were going on an end of season holiday for four days before training on Saturday.

Meanwhile Lads Club have had a less than perfect preparation from Monday's game having played nine league matches in the last three weeks with a depleted squad.

Manager Danny Moon has had to cover in defence and even play as goalkeeper in one match due to player shortages.

However, he says that his side

"We've had a hard run of games, the boys are running on empty and are all getting a little bit ratty but they have been superb," said Moon.

"We have had eight players missing but they have done absolutely brilliant. Our goalkeeper broke his leg after an accident with the defender due to shortages I had to go in goal for one match which was an absolute nightmare for the first time since I was about seven.

"We have all chipped in together and I can't fault the lads the amount of games they have had and we have got this cup final to play.

"It will be a great occasion and they have gone up a level and brought in some very good players. From what he (Pete Beadle) can play there are only two or three youth players signed on so it's going to be a real strong side.

"We have got to have our shape, give them respect but not too much and keep in the game like last year for as long as we can. We kept in the game for 75 minutes last year but it's that 20 minutes of fitness.

"It's a great spectacle for us and the lads need to learn off their players. We have got to make them make mistakes so we will try and make them do that.

"I don't know what state we'll be in when it comes around with a game Tuesday, Thursday and after the Monday final."