Title hopes dwindle

Whitley Warriors had a bad weekend of the road as their hopes of landing the English National League title suffered a blow when they returned from a road trip to Coventry and Blackburn with just one point.

Trailing 2-0 at the end of the first period in Coventry they fought back with markers from Bryan Dunn and DJ Good to draw level, but couldn’t find the winning goal despite dominating proceedings.

Against Blackburn last night, the two sides traded blows before the home side emerged victorious in an eleven goal thriller that saw them strike the winning blow at 58.11.

But despite the poor points return from the weekend, Whitley coach Simon Leach had nothing but praise for his side.

“I can’t fault our effort over the weekend at all,” he said, “we probably deserved to win both games, but just didn’t have the luck in front of goal that you sometimes need.

“We were a little slow out of the blocks in Coventry, but dominated the rest of the game,” he added, “while last night would have been fantastic to watch for any neutral in the building.

“We out-shot Blackburn by 43-24, but didn’t close the game out when he went 4-3 in front early in the second session and have paid the price in the end.”

However, Leach felt the overall performance of his side over the two games had been top class.

“I was very happy that we worked so hard each night to get ourselves back in contention whenever we fell behind,” he continued, “but maybe we switched off mentally just the once in Blackburn and were made to pay by a side that has improved as the season has gone.”

Ryan Sample put Whitley ahead inside three minutes at Blackburn, but they found themselves 3-1 in arrears by 21.32 before scoring three times in as many minutes through Paul Windridge, DJ Good and Shaun Kippin to take the lead again.

Blackburn equalised once more in the 52nd minute only to see Adam Reynolds restore the Warriors advantage with a little over six minutes remaining.

However, it was the Hawks who grabbed the points when they netted twice in the closing stage to deny Whitley the two points they wanted to put pressure on league leaders Nottingham Lions.