Toolstation NCEL Premier Division
- Pontefract head to Worksop Town tomorrow. A Worksop win would send them top.
- The Collieries lost 3-1 to Parkgate in midweek – their first full game since December 5th.
- Manager Craig Parry has confirmed that the hunt for new players is still ongoing.
Pontefract Collieries manager Craig Parry
Craig Parry has compared the predicament that Pontefract Collieries found themselves in to starting a pre-season campaign after his side played their first match in over a month in midweek.
The 3-1 defeat to Parkgate on Wednesday night was Pontefract’s first full match since the beginning of December. The break has been especially frustrating for Parry, who stepped up from being the goalkeeper to become the club’s permanent manager last month.
“It is hard work and and the hardest part is the frustration of not playing because we had started to get the lads playing how we wanted them to play,” Parry said when reflecting on how he had acclimatised to the role. “When you’re not playing for six or seven weeks, everything gets put on hold at this level and basically it is like starting again.”
Parry and his assistants Nigel Danby and Craig Rouse have spent the enforced break holding training sessions and scouting teams and players. They have also signed Brad Kerr, Paul Sykes, Matty James and Josh Wright. The trio have tried to entice a few more and the search is continuing.
“We have a couple of irons in the fire and we’re just trying to get them over the finish line in the next week,” he said. It is not easy and every manager in Non League is probably saying and doing the same things. It is hard work because you have a player there and you think you have him signed and all of a sudden two hours later he has changed his mind.
“We have been knocked back by a couple of our targets, but I’m sure they won’t be the only ones who will knock us back. With everyone having similar budgets at this level apart from the top four, we are all fighting for the same players.”
Parry’s squad face a huge tomorrow against Worksop Town, who will go top with three points. The Collieries boss knows the size of the task, but he’s not taking his side over to Sandy Lane to park the buss.
“I said to the lads at the end of the (Parkgate) game that we watched Worksop on Saturday and they are flying,” he said. They have a good side and management team and they probably favourites to be the team to go up.
“We will go there and express ourselves. We won’t sit back, that is one thing we won’t do, and we’ll go there and enjoy it. No-one expects to go there and get anything. Everyone is expecting us to go there and lose four or five or six so as far as I’m concerned we’ll go there with a smile on our face, play our way and try and win the game.”