Horncastle boss reflects on 'sobering day' after 10-0 loss
Horncastle Town were left licking some considerable wounds on Saturday after they fell to a 10-0 defeat at second-placed Crowle Colts.
The two sides met for the third time this season in league and cup, with Colts having won the previous games 2-0 and 4-0 but with Horncastle giving a good account of themselves in both.
However, on Saturday they were comprehensively beaten, leaving joint-boss John Rawdon extremely disappointed in the manner of defeat.
He said: “Sobering is certainly the word for it.
"A 10-0 loss is hard to take. Colts certainly deserved a 10-0 win, don’t get me wrong, as they’re a good side who are at the top of the league.
"We’ve played them twice already this season and have competed with them both times, so we expected to go there and do the same again and actually started the game well when we hit the crossbar and had another shot flash wide.
"But then we found ourselves 2-0 down after ten minutes and even then I was still content – they’d scored good goals so I could accept it – but the third goal was a goalkeeper error and at that point you know the writing is on the wall.
"It wasn’t going to go for us and we don’t seem to have enough about us to get back in the game and it was always going to be a an uphill battle.
"I think the players have to look at themselves after that performance. I’m not going to knock the effort, commitment and work rate, because generally it was there, but it just isn’t good enough at the minute, and that lies with us as a management team to identify and rectify the problems and regalvanise going into the next couple of games.”
"We’re in a relegation dogfight but I do feel we have enough about us to pick a few points up and haul ourselves up the league.”
Horncastle now have another break before playing again, their next game being on February 8 at Sleaford Town Reserves in the League Cup.
Rawdon added: “It’s so frustrating to not have another game for the next two Saturdays – I get that it’s not the biggest league in the world and there will be breaks in games, but to have the Christmas break and then one game between then and February doesn’t help anyone, but that’s the way it is so we’ll aim to train and play some friendlies and maybe use it as a complete reset to organise ourselves moving forward.”