Play-off hopes hit by Tamworth

Conference
TAMWORTH 1 ACCRINGTON STANLEY 0

STANLEY'S play-off hopes took a severe knock after struggling Tamworth celebrated the double over them.

The Reds could have made a big impression in the Conference with Exeter, Morecambe, Scarborough and Hereford all losing on Saturday. But instead they threw three points away against their bogey team and the management are now under pressure to produce results and keep Stanley in the hunt.

"We are shell-shocked," said assistant boss Jimmy Bell. "It is like deja vu and it is happening week in week out. We keep shooting ourselves in the foot. With a couple of wins, we could have concreted ourselves in the play-off spot but, for some unknown reason, we have made silly mistakes and thrown the chance away - again."

Manager John Coleman changed things around dropping Ian Craney to the bench and bringing in Paul Cook.But it was a poor first half with the Lambs having the best chance on five minutes when Paul Crichton had to tip over a long range effort from player-boss Mark Cooper. But it erupted after the break. Debutant Mark Rawle - on loan from Oxford - had been a threat all day and he opened his Tamworth account on 48 minutes. A long ball forward fell to Jonathan Smith - in for the suspended Mike Flynn - and veteran striker Bob Taylor. Smith let the ball drop and it was easy for Taylor to square to Rawle who finished low into the bottom corner of the net.

"You can't legislate for Jonathan making a mistake like that. He is gutted in there but usually he would just head it away but for some reason he didn't clear it. He doesn't know why," said Bell.

And Stanley couldn't bounce back from that one mistake with their strikers, Paul Mullin and Lee McEvilly, struggling to find a way through. In fact, they didn't really cause a problem until the 70th minutes when McEvilly's volley was palmed away by the keeper.

"We are just going through a patch where we can't score either," added Bell. "One bad error is costing us badly. We possibly need a player here or there - that might be the spark we need."