Chasing the game

Whitley Warriors began the new year with defeat when they went down 6-2 away to Trafford Metros last night and after the home side opened the scoring in just 20 seconds, coach Garry Dowd felt his side were chasing the game all night.

"Trafford came at us right from the off and when they scored so quickly that put us on the back foot," he said.

"It took us some time to get going after that, especially as we hadn't had a game for a couple of weeks over Christmas, and you could tell the difference in the Metros play because they had been in action at Coventry the night before.

"However, despite conceding a couple more before the end of the first period, he made a bright start to the second and quickly got a goal back through DJ (Good)," Dowd added, "and if we could have got another one then it might have been so much different.

"But once again we were guilty of a lack of discipline and that disrupted our play, so that we couldn't get any kind of grip on the game."

With his side trailing by two going into the final session, Dowd felt they could still get something from the night, but it just didn't happen for his side.

"To be honest, the side that wanted it more won, "he admitted, "and because we were committed to pushing up to try and get back into the match, they were able to pick us off at the back and three more goals sealed our fate."

Although Ally Brummitt was able to return to action after six weeks out with injury, Dowd has lost two more players with Dean Holland (groin) and Jordan Barnes (dislocated shoulder) out of action for the foreseeable future, leaving them on the side-lines along with Steve Pritchard (knee), Phil Pritchard (groin) and Bryan Dunn (groin).

"It could be that I will have to suit up for the next few weeks to help out," said the coach, "we have had a terrible run of injuries this season and there's no doubt it has been an influence on some of our results."