CHERRIES women boss Steve Cuss hailed the “incredible” achievement of his side to go through the entire league campaign unbeaten, urging them to use the disappointment of missing out on promotion to “spur us on” next season.

Cherries won 19 of their 22 Division One South West league fixtures, drawing the other three, including 1-1 on the final day at leaders Exeter City.

But it is only the Grecians who will be promoted to the Southern Premier Division, as they too were unbeaten, winning 20 of their games.

Gemma McGuinness’s goal put Cherries 1-0 up in Devon on Sunday, but Zoe Cunningham ensured a share of the spoils and promotion for the hosts.

“It’s hurtful,” Cuss told afcbTV.

“You set your stall out to be the best that you can be and we’ve gone through the whole season and no-one has been able to beat us, but that’s not been quite good enough.

“Exeter are worthy champions, but it’s fine margins and I’m just so proud of the girls to be able to do that.

“To be able to have that ability to go through any league and not get beaten, it takes an incredible team to do that.

“They deserve an enormous amount of credit for that.”

He added: “We’ve got to digest this now and keep moving forward.

“That’s what we want to do with the women’s team. We’ve moved it forward year on year.

“We got closer this year. We’ve got to try and regroup in the summer, go again next year and maybe use this to spur us on a little bit.”

Cherries have one game left to round off their season, when they face Southampton FC’s under-21s in the Hampshire Senior Cup final on Monday.

The game will take place at Aldershot Town’s EBB Stadium (7.45pm).