“We just weren’t at the races today”

Nathan Haslam could not hide his disappointment after seeing his team beaten by a last minute goal for the second week in a row. “I thought it was a poor game. It was hard to take but we just weren’t at the races today for whatever reason. At 1-0 I don’t think they (RCA) were looking likely to score. We’ve had some clear cut opportunities with just the keeper to beat; first Coleby Shepherd, and then James Fairley’s put one the wrong side of the post. We’ve had some very good chances to really put the game to bed at 1-0 up then there was a one on one with Craig McFarlane, but we didn’t take those chances so they were always still in the game. And then as the wind got up they got that free kick – we don’t think it was a free kick, but we shouldn’t have allowed it to be in that position because James Martin should have just put it over the line and he didn’t.
“It was a game very similar to last week with two late goals. Did we deserve to lose it? Some people would say no, but ultimately we’ve got to learn to deal with things like that. So it was a bad day at the office. Our ‘ground play’ on the day wasn’t great, the pitch didn’t help, it was really bobbly out there and I think that might be one of the reasons we weren’t as slick as we usually are on the deck. It was just a game of long balls, with second balls humped in the air. It wasn’t our type of game at all but that’s what it was.
“We’ve lost the game which I’m disappointed in, but I’m more disappointed that we’re not finishing games off. That’s two games now where we were 1-0 up, yes there were bad decisions that went against us, but we’ve had our own chances and we haven’t been putting them away, it’s the story of this season really. I’ve said to the lads I’m sounding like a broken record every week in that changing room, we’re saying exactly the same things. The fact is those young players need to take a long hard look at themselves because the mentality at this minute in time is of serial losers and they need to get out of that and see games through. But as ever I’ll look at myself over the weekend to get the team selection right. At this stage it’s a real hard one to take. I’m not here to blame referees or anything about pitches, I’m more disappointed in my players.
“I did think today RCA won too many second balls, they looked like they wanted it a bit more than us but that was partly because we didn’t finish them off, so they always had something to go for, to get something out of the game. We’ve just got to learn to kill teams off. We need seven weeks now of full throttle commitment, they’ve got to start and get some wins on the board, it’s as simple as that. We’ve taken points off the top teams and been unlucky not to win some of those games but again it comes back to our Achilles heel, late goals stopping us getting draws and wins. If we’re on the ball we’re ok against any team in this league but we need to be a lot better next week.”