Eagles bid to ride out the storm

2:35pm Friday 25th January 2008

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The noises emanating from Plumpton Park were very positive last week but there was no immediate improvement on the pitch as the Eagles were dumped out of the Northern Counties East League Cup on Wednesday.

"We need to stick together at times like this - it isn't easy to ride through these storms but I think we are strong enough to come through the other side," said United manager Mick Watson.

It was a very good chance for Eccleshill to move into the semi-finals but the mid-table side were beaten following a late rally from Lincoln Moor-lands.

What made it harder to swallow was that the home side were second from bottom and it was 0-0 after 70 minutes.

"The players made mistakes and we had some heated discussions in the dressing room," added Watson.

"When the game has gone, it only takes 24 hours to come up smiling again.

"We have meetings before or after training and there are some very reasonable conversations between everyone.

"It is up to Andy (assistant Patterson) and myself to sort the tactics and to lift the players after unfortunate defeats."

Watson added: "The league table doesn't look pretty for us at the moment but we will battle through.

"Other clubs will be looking at us now and wondering what the problem is but these are the same players that went on a run of eight games unbeaten and reached fifth place. We had games in hand and could have gone fourth.

"We have dropped a lot since then but the season is only just about halfway through because of the games lost to the waterlogged and frozen pitches.

"It might take an ugly 1-0 with the goal going in off someone's backside but I genuinely believe that one win will turn things around for us."