Bruised 'Bridge seek supportto bounce back at Deighton
BOROUGHBRIDGE boss Daz Ekin is calling for an army of travelling support to get behind his men as they eye a place in the County Cup quarter-final.
'Bridge make the trip to Harrogate Premier Division side Kirk Deighton tomorrow (1pm kick-off) desperate to shake off last Saturday's unbelievable 8-2 defeat to Rothwell in the League Cup.
Ekin is adamant he should take the flack for the surprising loss but is now desperate to turn their fortunes around against an in form Deighton.
Dan Marshall's men are the lowest ranked team left in the competition and Ekin knows Deighton are the underdogs.
"We've had a look at Deighton and we know they're no mugs, they have a lot of good young players and it will be a difficult game," said Ekin.
"The unfortunate thing about Saturday's game was the level of support we got. Rothwell had more fans there than ourselves and we were the home team so I suppose I was a bit disappointed with that.
"Kirk Deighton's not that far away from us, only about ten to 15 minutes down the A1 so hopefully we can get a few fans down there to watch us and get behind the team.
"They will obviously be underdogs going into the game as we are in the West Yorkshire League and that is a better standard than the Harrogate League.
"But they'll have nothing to lose and that's one thing we'll have to look out for."
After Saturday's defeat the County Cup may become 'Bridge's last chance of scooping some cup silverware this season.
The side are well placed in the league but Ekin wants the excitement of a sustained cup run too.
"Saturday is a very important game for us and we're all hopeful we can get through to the next round," continued Ekin.
"Last Saturday was disappointing but we've got to forget that now. We've got to be positive going into Saturday's game and hopefully we can pull off a result.
"Tomorrow is Olie Uffindall's last game before he goes away to Australia so hopefully he can end on a high.
"He's been brilliant for us this season and scored some really important goals over the last few months so we will miss him."
On Saturday, an abject home performance left 'Bridge embarrassed and humiliated by a team whom six weeks ago they were looking at to enhance their goal difference.
Playing a 3-5-2 formation and against the wind, ‘Bridge went a goal down after only three minutes when Andy Layton missed a header and Tom France's wind-assisted chip totally deceived Alastair Hogg.
Chris Stephenson brought a decent save out of Andy Hitchin on ten minutes but generally it was one way traffic as Rothwell cut through the confounded ‘Bridge players at will.
Hogg did produce two fine saves only to be beaten again on 24 minutes by Andy Maddren who brushed aside a challenge from Danny Webster to slot home.
Three minutes later it got worse as Rothwell increased their lead when Hogg failed to deal with a Jarrod Wallace corner.
Hogg then denied Wallace with an exceptional save five minutes before the break but a minute later the visitors cut through a static ‘Bridge team to leave Wallace with an easy tap in.
The cracks were now of cavernous proportion and Wallace then completed his hat trick with a 20 yard strike that flashed by Hogg.
Even though the wind abated slightly after the interval it was still Rothwell who dominated and two minutes into the half Tom France added his second and ten minutes later Wallace added his fourth, cutting in from the left, to hit another screamer into the top corner.
From ‘Bridge's best chance of the half, Uffindall produced a good save out of Hitchin before heading home a consolation goal on 77 minutes.
Rothwell hadn't finished and Andy Hall converted a penalty seven minutes from time with Ben Darville’s late goal of little solace.
Ekin accepted full responsibility for the shocking defeat.
“I take the blame for the result,” said the manager.
“At the end of the day I’m the manager so if anything goes wrong I’ll take the blame for it.
“I changed the side around a bit and tried a new formation which didn’t really work and for that I hold my hands up.”
andrew.groves@ypn.co.uk
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Sunday 05 February 2012
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