Skegness Town set for crucial games

The Lilywhites are in the play-off places following last weekend’s 3-0 win at Pinchbeck United - secured thanks to goals from George Hobbins, Scott Floyd and Dec Johnson - ahead of this weekend’s clash at home to Sleaford Town.

And Rawlinson was again pleased to take three important points.

He said: “I was pleased to get the win on Saturday. Pinchbeck are going through a tough time at the moment and fair play to Lewis and Mark, their management team, for continuing to get a side out and being competitive.

"They weren’t helped by a sending off reasonably early in the first-half, but these are the games where, when you’re away from home after two weeks off and without having trained as much, you can be a bit rusty so it was really important for us to get the result.

"We could have won by far more had we taken some more of our chances, which is still a bit of an achilles heel, but once again it was another clean sheet and a good, standard away performance.

"It also moved us back into the play-off places which is really pleasing. Eastwood have a game in hand on us and one or two others below could catch us, but equally we’ve got a couple of games in hand on Loughborough who are above us.

“So it’s all to play for going into two massive games over the Christmas period against Sleaford and Boston. Form potentially goes out the window when it’s a local derby. Both games have lots of local connections, but we’re at home and hopefully we’ll get some good crowds.

"We’ll give it our all to win both games – if that isn’t good enough then so be it, but I expect them both to be feisty encounters and hopefully we can let our football come through.

"These games, and those around new year, will go a long way to setting us up or meaning we’ve still got to chase, so it’s an important little period for us.”