North West Counties League First Division North
Joint manager Ash Connor says Golcar United will do their very best to keep the pace with huge favourites Bury AFC as the title race heads towards the final furlongs.
Golcar are second with 11 games to play but Bury remain unbeaten and could open up a six point gap.
Golcar – who host Daisy Hill tomorrow – cannot afford to drop points and Connor concedes that it will be a tough ask to pip Bury to the title.
“It looks like Bury are starting to pull away,” Connor told Non League Yorkshire.
“We just need to keep doing what we’re doing and stay with them as best we can.
“If they win their game-in-hand they go six points clear so they have got themselves in a very good position.
“I’ve said it all season they should be favourites but we have stuck with them all season so we’ll keep going.
“They haven’t had a spell of bad form and it is very rare for a team to go through a whole season not losing a game.
“We have to hope they have a spell where they start to drop points.
“We can’t lose now if we want to stay on their tails.
“We have to take it a game at a time and we have eleven tough games left.”
Connor does not intend to add to the Golcar squad in the near future and he says his troops deserve credit for pushing Bury as far as they have.
“I think the squad is strong enough and we have a good enough squad,” he said.
“We don’t need to improve by bringing any players in.
“We have just got to keep doing what we have done all season.
“Taking out the St Helens game and a couple of others where we have dropped points, we have had a great season.
“We have done a lot better than we thought we would do at the start of the season.
“To stay close with Bury, we’ve done well.
“They have probably been looking over their shoulder most of the season thinking ‘will Golcar and Holker go away’.
“I thought they were clear favourites (at the start of the season) but we have been close and when you’re so close you want to keep pushing and stay close for the rest of the season.
“I think at the beginning of the season we’d have thought a play-off place would have been realistic and I think we have nearly cemented a place in there now.”
Ex-goalkeeper Connor also emphasised the importance of where they finish.
“I think a few more wins and we’ll cement a place in the play-offs,” he said.
“The important thing is we get home advantage as well.
“If we finish second or third we’ll have home advantage in the semi.
“If we do finish second and progress into the final we’ll get home advantage.”