Ashby takes Urchins' defeat on the chin

MARGATE boss Barry Ashby was a disappointed man as his side went down to a 2-0 defeat to AFC Hornchurch at Hartsdown Park yesterday.

The Thanet side rarely troubled Dale Brightly in the Hornchurch goal until the final twenty minutes, but it proved to be too little, too late as the Essex side hung on to claim the win as Margate drop into the bottom four of the Ryman Premier League table.

“Overall today, I think (it is) very hard to really try and take a lot of positives out of the game, apart from the last 15 or 20 minutes,” Ashby told Steve Wells at www.margate-fc.com. Talking about the blustery conditions, Ashby was not using that as an excuse.

He said: “It was the same for both teams, but they just coped with the wind better than we did. But then again, you say that, and you can see what we can do it the last 15-20 minutes.

“You take the positive out of the game because that’s the way you want to go. But for me, the worse thing about the game was the way we defended. You can’t defend like that.

“Free kick into our box and the man’s got away - no one on him. And then a long throw into our box - that’s not good enough!

“The only thing I will say about this (defeat) - (against) Canvey, we sort of rolled over and died a little bit.

“Today, there was none of that. We went to the absolute 94^th minute, so that’s a good positive to show that we have learned from our mistakes from before.”

Margate gave new signing Lee Maskell his first start in place of Paul Smith, while Jack Parkinson and Michael Power had to make do with a place on the bench.

Ashby takes his side to 13^th place side Tooting & Mitcham United on Tuesday night, and the former Gillingham ace added: “We’ve got to brush ourselves down, take it on the chin and get ready for Tuesday.”

Article courtesy of www.margate-fc.com

Tooting & Mitcham United v Margate
Ryman Premier League
Tuesday 9^th September 2008
Kick Off 7:45pm
At Imperial Fields, Bishopsford Road, Morden, Surrey SM4 6BF