NPL Division One East
Craig Rouse says Pontefract Collieries are currently on course to meet their targets for the season.
Ponte – who host Brighouse Town in tonight’s mouth-watering Friday night fixture – have had a solid campaign so far and they sit in seventh place.
“The league never lies and you are where you deserve to be and our objective was to get to Christmas time and be in that pack and in and around the play-offs,” Rouse told Non League Yorkshire.
“At the minute that’s where we are.
“We have games coming up where hopefully we can pick up points and put ourselves further in that mix.
“We always say at Christmas you get a feel of where you want to be and finish and hopefully we can keep getting positive results and finish the year well and then look forward to the second half of the season.
“If you look at the league table I think the top two are away and they’ll compete with themselves.
“I make Worksop favourites just based on them being the best side we have faced this season and the type of players they have recruited.
“Then it is anyone up to 16th or 17th who can realistically compete for the next three positions in the play-offs.
“At the minute we are in that mix and it is up to us to try and solidify that.”
The Colls were trounced 6-0 at Brighouse in the middle of November so they will be looking to rectify that result.
However, revenge is not on Rouse’s mind.
“I wouldn’t say it was one of our the worst results in our history when you look at where we are as a club compared to where we were five or six years ago,” he said.
“We were consistently losing to clubs at the bottom end of the NCEL.
“We have to put a bit of perspective on things and realise how far we have come in such a short space of time.
“There were obviously mitigating circumstances to that result.
“It is a squad game and we have to utilise the squad and we were really tested as we had no defenders and an entire back four missing.
“You could tell. No disrespect to the players who played but we were a little out of our depth that night.
“It Is up to us to give a better reflection our ourselves this time.”
Ponte’s huge red card tally has been one of the biggest talking points all season.
Sending-offs have moved into double figures in recent weeks but Rouse feels the situation is under control at his end.
“We went through a period of five-or-six games where we had a lot of lack of discipline,” he said.
“People were getting sent off for silly reason like dissent and confrontation.
“We said a month ago that we would address it.
“Unfortunately when we want to address it, it doesn’t mean the referees are of the same mind – especially in the last two games.
“I think Scott Brown’s red card against Long Eaton was a red card for being the last man. It certainly wasn’t a lack of discipline.
“Joe Lumsden’s red card at Worksop was an absolute travesty. It was the cleanest tackle of the game but unfortunately he flashed a second yellow which made us unable to appeal.
“We have tidied the discipline up. There’s no dissent or confrontations.
“It looks worse than it is in the last few weeks.”
Rouse feels the poor disciplinary record will continue to improve if referees stop doing internet research on his side before fixtures.
“I think referees are all too quick to flash us a yellow or red card because they have been looking at what has happened in previous games,” he said.
“I think referees have to be stronger and come with an open mind of ‘I am going to referee this game for what I see rather than on what I have seen in the past when I’ve not been at the game’.
“Unfortunately we seem to be getting tarred with a brush before they arrive and we’re getting nothing from officials.
“We hope going forward we can get stronger officials who make decisions on what they see on the day.”