NPL Division One East
Craig Rouse is hoping Pontefract Collieries continue their upturn in form and go into Christmas on an upbeat note.
The Colls make the short journey to Ossett United for the Friday night WF El-Clasico aiming to secure a third win in five matches.
Play-offs chasing Ossett are hoping to arrest a slump of five without a victory and Rouse knows his men face a test of character.
“We’re going to Ossett and we’re in for a tough game, the league table tells you that,” Rouse told Non League Yorkshire.
“They will be wanting to turn their recent form around and put an upturn on their season.
“We’re under no illusions.
“But if we can win we’ll have taken nine points from a possible 15 which shows we are on the right track and that we are moving forward.
“The goal between now and the end of the season is to accrue as many points as possible, we want to put respectability on the table.
“As a group we feel we are in a false position.
“But it is not your thoughts that change it, it is your actions.
“The outlook would be different (if we win on Friday) and we would be looking up (the table) but we have to make sure we earn the right in every game.
“It is massive game and we have to try and outwork the opposition.
“If we do that we’re confident we have got good players who can win games.”
Wins over Hebburn Town and Pickering Town in the past few weeks have brightened the atmosphere at Beechnut Lane and dragged them up to 17th.
Rouse has had to slightly re-shape his squad and he says the changes have been effective.
“(We’re) more resolute when you look at the group now,” he said.
“When you look at the last four games we have conceded three goals, two of which were refereeing errors that the referees have admitted.
“We know how to stay in games better and we defend better as a unit.
“We are not as free-scoring and that’s something we would like to improve.
“We’re created a lot of chances on Saturday and 1-0 flattered Pickering and we should have taken the game away from them.
“But we’re more settled.
“We knew we would lose one-or-two after the FA Cup run and there was one-or-two things going on internally with players as we had to deal with discipline issues.
“We’re definitely more settled and we feel we’re stronger as a group and more together as a group and the recent results have shown that.
“We probably need to bring in one-or-two (players) to put the finishes touches on it but we’re happy with where we are and happy with the players we have got at the club.”
The latest win was last Saturday’s victory over Pickering who were bottom of the table at the time.
“It was a good win but it was what our performances have merited recently,” Rouse added.
“In the last four games we have had four really good performances.
“We were beaten narrowly away at Yorkshire Amateur and at Marske to late goals.
“People were billing (the Pickering game) as a six-pointer and I saw your article saying it was a six-pointer and I suppose looking in from the outside it is that.
“You don’t want to get into the those discussions because I’ve always maintained that our performances have been good and we haven’t got what we deserved in a lot of the games this year.
“There’s not a lot of teams in the Division who have given us a going over.
“Every game has been nip and tuck and we wanted to make sure we started falling on the right end of those results and luckily we managed to do that (against Pickering).
“We now to try and back it up and kick away.”
Ben Turner is in line to make his Pontefract debut at Ossett.