PLAYERS WERE BULLIED IN 5-0 THRASHING AT UXBRIDGE

HARTLEY WINTNEY COACH CLAIMS INCONSISTENT YOUNG

HARTLEY Wintney coach Neil Woodyer admits the young side pushing for a play-off place in Isthmian League South Central must be ‘better’ than they were during their 5-0 drubbing at Uxbridge.

The Honeycroft side welcomed the Row on the back of three heavy defeats, but from the start Uxbridge were by far the better team and should have taken a larger lead into the interval than the two-goal advantage they had.

Hartley Wintney, who were due to travel to Thatcham Town last night (Tuesday) before hosting Sutton Common Rovers on Saturday, began the second half with more purpose and showed greater technical ability with the ball until the home side added their third on 75 minutes.

Then as the game ticked into the closing moments, skipper Liam

Gavin was dismissed as he pulled Christian Johnson back as he looked to charge into the Row area. From the resultant free-kick, the home side made it 4-0 before the rout was completed in the 94th minute.

“Where do you start? We know that is not good enough,” a despondent Woodyer said.

“At the end of the day we know that we have got to be better on the ball, we know that we have got to be better within our shape and we know that we can’t concede goals that easy.

“We have come out in the second half, not after a rollicking at halftime but after a real look at ourselves – we were looking like petrified little schoolboys.

“We have come out and we have said to them we have got to go back to our identity, and our identity is playing football. You can’t go out and compete with men, and what I mean by men is players that want to come and be aggressive with us, turn us and put us on the back foot, and when we get the ball just turn it over too quickly.

“Our message was to get the ball down and play it through the lines and play with pace through the lines, which we started to do.

“And then there were a couple of little mistakes that put them back on the front foot, and it put us deeper and deeper, and then we concede the third goal.”

After the 5-1 loss at play-off rivals Westfield, the Row went on a six-match unbeaten run, which included a disappointing 1-1 draw with Corinthian-Casuals, before slumping to a 4-1 defeat to struggling Binfield the previous weekend.

And with the need to strengthen their young squad, the Row could only name four players on the bench on Saturday.

Woodyer says results like the Casuals, Binfield and Uxbridge games do make it harder to try and persuade players to come.

“We are trying [to bring players in]. It is very tough,” the Row coach said. “We haven’t got the massive budgets. We haven’t got a small budget, I’m not going to say we have got the smallest budget in the league, but we haven’t got a massive budget.

“When you are pushing for the play-offs it is easier to go out and say play for us and get us in the play-offs, but when you have the two results previous to this, it becomes harder.

“The inconsistency is there with the younger squad, we know that, we know that is going to be part of having a younger squad, but we also know that wasn’t good enough at times today.

“If we could get a better mix of older players with the younger players, you don’t get as much inconsistency.”

See page 30 for the match report.

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