Gale slams second half Stortford showing
The Hawks' season on the road came to a disappointing conclusion as they fell to a 1-0 defeat at Bishop's Stortford on Saturday in the Blue Square South.
The visitors were caught cold straight after the break when Danny Harris's 49th-minute run took him through the defence to fire home across keeper Nathan Ashmore.
Frustrated manager Shaun Gale thought his side did not do enough afterwards to try to restore the balance.
'It was another 45-minute performance, and that isn't good enough,' said Gale.
'That's this season in a nutshell and the players know that's how I feel.
'We were in control for the first half and with a bit of finishing, or a bit of luck, we'd have been in front.
'They're a good side and they've had some good results, but we made them look average with our endeavour and our closing down, we stopped them dead.
'But we didn't start the second half properly and they scored a very soft goal because of that.'
Matters could have been dramatically different for the Hawks but they saw Shaun Wilkinson's 10th-minute free-kick skim off Ian Simpemba and slam into the post, signalling the start of a first-half onslaught that gave their opponents little room to manoeuvre.
Seconds later, Craig Watkins's fast-breaking move down the wing ended with a cross that Luke Nightingale drove at Nicky Eyre, and the Blues keeper was kept busy when Jay Gasson's long-range effort forced another save.
But Eyre could do nothing about Jamie Collins's thumping volley from a corner by Wilkinson, needing instinctive reflexes from defender Narada Barnard to head it off the line.
A too-casual start to the second half, though, cost the Hawks dear.
Reece Prestedge went on to hit the bar for the hosts straight after Harris' goal, and Ashmore had to scramble Lewis Smith's close shot round the post as Stortford continued to pile on the pressure.
The Hawks were then given a lucky let-off when the Blues attacked from a string of corners, and Rory Hill's volley from the second took a deflection that bent it past an unguarded post.
'Our performances aren't a tap that we can turn on and off. None of us, including me, are good enough to do that.' Gale said.
'I ask for players to give their best right to the end of the season, but we haven't got that little bit of nastiness about us to go and really turn the screw.
'You can't come away and have three or four players off their game, and unfortunately today we probably did have.
'Wes Fogden has been ill all week so he ran out of steam, but the front three were all over them in the first half, then in the second they were non-existent.'
For Gale though, now is a time to start thinking about the future and he is optimistic about his side going forward.
'I don't think with the performances we've put in of late that we're a million miles away from being a title challenging side, but sometimes it's not about ability, it's about an attitude that has to last 90 minutes,' he said.
'I think if the Championship had been on today's game then some of the players wouldn't have played like that, but creating that hunger and desire week in week out is for the management team to deal with.
'It comes down to that one word: desire.
'Players with less ability than ours are playing at higher levels of football and it's for that one reason only. That's why some of our players are at the level they are.
'I think anyone can see from the last few games that we have the nucleus of a good team, but the run of form has come too late.
'If that had happened at the start of the season I'd like to think we'd have been up there challenging now.
'Since our change in form I've wanted to go unbeaten to the end of the season. I always want to win every game.
'I'll keep going to the end and I expect them to, but for the second half today I don't think some of them did. That's the disappointment.'
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Weather for Portsmouth
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
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Temperature: 13 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 24 mph
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