Depleted Durham City will soldier on

Nov 28 2009 by Steve Brown, The Journal

EVEN in defeat, Lee Collings was encouraged – until he conducted a head count for today.

Durham City lost their UniBond Challenge Cup third round home tie against AFC Halifax – of UniBond North – on Tuesday, when the Esh Group Stadium outfit were ahead twice, effectively penalised when the referee failed to dismiss a visiting defender for a professional foul and were generally the better side.

Despite being outmuscled, that lifted Collings’ confidence ahead of today’s league trip to eight-placed Hucknall Town. Then he sought to establish how many players he would have.

“It was a disappointing result against Halifax but I was encouraged by our performance, every single one of the lads played really well,” Collings.

“We can compete with anyone when we get the ball down and play. Unfortunately it’s the more physical aspects that are costing us. We outplayed Halifax football-wise but they scored three goals inside the six-yard box from corners.

“They had two lads of 6ft 5in and we simply don’t, so we struggle to defend against that. Set-pieces are a fundamental part of the game and it’s costing us because we’re just not big enough to defend them.

“We should have been 2-1 up against 10 men. Josh Home-Jackson was clean through when their defender pulled him down and although we scored from the penalty the referee only gave the defender a yellow card. It should have been red and the referee couldn’t explain his decision to me after the game. No one in the ground could believe it.

“I was very encouraged – until afterwards when we had a head count for Saturday! Kyle Wren is out for five weeks with a calf injury and Mark Batey needs reconstructive surgery on his knee.

“Then there are four or five – Max Stoker, Reece Jobling, Paul Taylor, Jak Thompson and possibly Marc Hollingsworth – with work commitments.

“It’s so frustrating because this is happening every time we play away from home. But we’ll just soldier on, work hard and if we get a bit of luck who knows?”