Progress pleases Skegness manager

Boss Chris Rawlinson says big strides are now being made at Skegness Town as they made it three games unbeaten at the weekend.

Having lost their first three games of the season in the league and FA Cup, Skegness beat Shirebrook Town 3-1 and then won impressively 5-0 at Wisbech Town last Tuesday.

And although they couldn’t get the better of Bourne Town in a 0-0 draw at the Vertigo Stadium on Saturday, Rawlinson says it’s been a good spell for the club.

He said: “The win at Shirebrook started things off, then we were exceptional at Wisbech even though they had a man sent off early on.

"Then on Saturday, Bourne are a good side with some good attacking threats and are very strong at the back, but our midfield probably just shaded it and I was very pleased with another clean sheet as you can’t complain about eight goals scored and one conceded over three games.

"We’re still three or four points behind where we want to be but that’s fine as I feel we can easily catch that up, and the important thing is the way we defended and starting to keep those clean sheets.

"Once we lost Rio Molyneaux with an injury in the first-half on Saturday, we became a little bit one dimensional, especially without him and Jordan Smith, but the lads who filled in did really well and gave us some other options.

“We can’t just rely on them, we’ve all got to step up to the plate when they’re not there and maybe that’s the challenge when the key players to this new system aren’t there, but that’s for us and the management team to work on.”

Skegness now face the challenge of the early league leaders on Saturday as they got to take on Belper United, who are again playing their games at the home of Eastwood Community this season.

He said: “Belper have had a great start to the season and it’s a really tough place to go, as it’s a horrible 3G pitch which is rock hard, so we go there as the underdogs which is great because we can go there and if we win we firmly put ourselves in the picture.

"We can beat anyone in this league but we can lose to anyone, so we have to go there full of confidence but also respecting Belper United massively as we try and get to where we want to be.”