Toolstation NCEL Division One
Leon Sewell puts the upturn in form at Hall Road Rangers down to a “collective effort”.
Until last week’s defeat to Glasshoughton Welfare, Hall Road – who travel to Worsbrough Bridge this afternoon – had gone six games unbeaten.
“(James) Piercy and Alex Knaggs, the two centre-halves, have struck up a really good professional relationship,” Sewell told Non League Yorkshire.
“We have kept a lot of clean sheets recently and we kept three clean sheets back-to-back which for us is a big achievement.
“Piercy and Knaggs have both scored goals – Knaggsy has scored four or five already.
“But it has been a total collective effort in all honesty.
“We have got the captain Conner Harman back fit in the centre of midfield, Tom Bennett has found a bit of fitness.
“Sam Robinson has been doing really well and he’s been almost ever-present and he’s scored some important goals.
“Genuinely (the upturn in form) has been because of everyone as far as I’m concerned.
“The run actually started at the back end of October when we played FC Humber at home.
“We played away at Retford and won 4-1.
“We were beating Grimsby Borough 3-0 in the League Cup and our confidence just grew and grew.
“It was nice to see the players have some wind in their sails and everything we did was positive.
“Even everything we did (against Glasshoughton) was positive.
“We have got to make sure we get that wind in the sails again.
“When you look at the grand scheme of things; we have taken points off Retford, Harrogate Railway, Parkgate – all teams above us.
“You can’t argue and we have beaten teams who are below us and who we needed to get results against.
“Fair play to the lads.”
Hall Road were beaten 5-2 by Glasshoughton and Sewell had no complaints.
“It was maybe one game too far unfortunately,” he said.
“We had a couple of players missing and ultimately fair play to Glasshoughton because they came and did a job on us.
“It was a good game which was end-to-end.
“Before Glasshoughton scored we had chances.
“They probably controlled the game better than us and were ruthless in both boxes and we weren’t.
“The score-line shows that.”
The unbeaten run had reignited hopes of reaching the play-offs but those dreams are all but over as they would need pull some rabbits out of hats.
“The aim was top ten, that’s what we all would be hopeful of,” Sewell said.
“The biggest push for us would be the play-offs.
“We have 17 games left and I would think we need to win 15 of them to get there!
“It is what it is and we’ll keep taking every game as it comes.
“We’ll make sure we’re doing the right things.
“(The rest of the season) is about seeing how high up the league we can finish, first and foremost.
“I’ve not even thought about next season.
“It is about thinking about Worsbrough on Saturday.”