We need to show a bit more enthusiasm and a bit more energy, says Bromley coach Neil Smith

BROMLEY assistant manager Neil Smith says his side must start taking their chances when they arrive if they are to end their miserable recent record in The FA Carlsberg Trophy.

The Ravens were held to a 1-1 home draw by their Blue Square Bet (Conference) South rivals Staines Town in the Third Qualifying Round at the weekend and they must travel to Wheatsheaf Park for the replay on Tuesday night.

The Hayes Lane faithful last witnessed their side win a FA Trophy tie back in 2007 when Chippenham Town were defeated 2-1 on home soil in the third qualifying round, before the Kent side’s run was ended with a 1-0 defeat at Crawley Town in the First Round.

Since then, Bromley have suffered third qualifying round exits (at the first hurdle) to Swindon Supermarine, Maidstone United, Ebbsfleet United and Didcot Town, before Saturday’s draw against Staines Town ended that losing run.

Elliott Buchanan’s fourth goal of the season gave Mark Goldberg’s side a tenth-minute lead, before the Swans earned a second bite of the cherry.

Smith, 41, admits the Bromley players were suffering from their 3-0 defeat away to League Two side Fleetwood Town in the FA Cup First Round seven days’ earlier.

He said: “It was ok. It wasn’t much more than that!  I know the boys were feeling a little bit deflated from the week before being the FA Cup but it was a game for us to get back to winning ways.

“Obviously Staines are doing well. Elliott scored another great goal, a well worked goal, but then we really didn’t’ capitalise on it.  We sort of went back on ourselves instead of kicking on for another goal.  We went on the back foot so that was a bit disappointing on that respect.

“They scored another great goal to equalise and we had the chances again without actually taking them so it’s a bit disappointing really.”

Smith admits putting the ball into the back of the net during good spells has been a problem for the team for too long.

“We’re getting opportunities to score,” he said. “Even against Fleetwood, we lost 3-0 but then we had two cracking chances and it was a bit similar to Staines.

“We had a couple of great chances to kill the game off in the first half. We had a couple, Pierre (Joseph-Dubois) and Richard (Pacquette) and we didn’t take them and then in the last fifteen minutes of the second half on Saturday we had a couple of chances to kill it off.

“You’re always sceptical to them letting them get a goal on the break or them getting a winner so we’re just disappointed that we’ve had to go for a replay now but we’ll be up for it.”

Smith admitted he didn’t want a trip around the M25 on a Tuesday night.

He said: “We’re on catch up anyway because of having a decent FA Cup run and now we’ve got a replay on a Tuesday night.

“The squad’s quite thin anyway so it’s a game we could have done without but saying that it’s another game for the boys to put right what we didn’t do on Saturday.

“Hopefully with the draw has already been made, we could have a home draw against Boreham Wood.”

Smith urges the Bromley side to up their game at Wheatsheaf Park on Tuesday night.

“We need to show a bit more enthusiasm and a bit more energy,” said Smith.

“We worked on a couple of things (during training) on Thursday that came out on Saturday, but we only did it for half-an-hour of the first half and the last 25 minutes.

“Like I’ve pretty much said all season, we’ve got to make sure these games last 90 minutes and when you’re on top we have to take full advantage of it because if you don’t take advantage of it teams will get on top of us and we start going back on ourselves.

“We’ve got to go out there and go at them. There’s no point defending it. We have to get at them and get a result and hopefully with the attitude we’ve got of the boys we can win this game.

“They’re the home team so they’re the ones who are going to be under pressure, but we could go there knowing full well if we go at them we are capable of creating chances and we’ve got to start taking our chances.”

The winners of Tuesday night’s replay shall entertain fellow Blue Square Bet (Conference) South side Boreham Wood (who are in fourth-place) at home on Saturday, 24 November.

Smith said: “Obviously it’s a fantastic home draw again, so we’d love to take full advantage of that against a Boreham Wood side who are really pushing high up in the table at the moment, so we know it’s going to be a difficult game if we get them.”

Staines go into the replay sitting in eighth-place in the table, while Bromley are in seventeenth-place, the position where they finished last term.

Visit Bromley’s website: www.bromleyfc.net

Staines Town  v  Bromley
The FA Carlsberg Trophy Third Qualifying Round Replay
Tuesday 13^th November 2012
Kick Off 7:45pm
at Wheatsheaf Park, Wheatsheaf Lane, Staines, Middlesex TW18 2PD