TNS boss Scott Ruscoe has given his ‘half-term’ assessment of the season so far.

TNS will sit out this weekend with Ruscoe enjoying the break afforded by internationals with some time away having bounced back from defeat at Cardiff Metropolitan with a convincing win over Carmarthen Town last weekend.

While the Saints sit second in the Welsh Premier behind Connahs Quay Nomads, Ruscoe insists he does not rate his side any higher than a seven out of 10 so far and is expecting big improvements towards Christmas.

“I wouldn’t give ourselves any more than a six or a seven for this first part of the season,” said Ruscoe. “We did well in Europe and after six games we got to a stage where we were fit enough, but I think going out of the Irn-Bru Cup was disappointing, as were the defeats to Connah’s Quay and Cardiff Met.

“We’ve lost three games and it’s left us with a bit of work to do. We were disappointed with that and with the first stage of the season.

“I’ve got such high expectations of my squad and I know what they can do.”

Ruscoe insisted his side had not deserved to lose any of their games this season.

“We should never have gone out of the Irn-Bru Cup, we should have got a draw against Nomads and on our day we’d never get beaten 4-1 by Cardiff Met,” said Ruscoe.

Ruscoe says his players are fully prepared for the next stage of the season.

“When Europe is finished we give the players targets for the season. They know how many clean sheets we want, how many goals we want to see scored and even how many losses we will allow.

“For this next set of fixtures, we’re looking at how ever many games are left, let’s go unbeaten.

“We’ll have started the Welsh Cup too, so let’s get on in that as well as the Nathaniel MG Cup.

“They’re competitions we want to win with the aim to win the two cups and go unbeaten in the league. We also want to score as many goals as we can and we’ve kept five clean sheets so far, let’s keep a lot more.”