North Wales Crusaders head coach Carl Forster said he’s ready to ‘go back to basics’ as his side look to respond to back-to-back defeats next weekend when they welcome Goole Vikings to Stadiwm CSM.
The bank holiday clash in North Wales will see Forster’s Crusaders side have the opportunity to move within a point of the Betfred League One title with two games remaining, however, an in-form Goole side will stand in their way.
Speaking to the media ahead of the game, Forster said: “We’ve hit a bit of a rough patch over the last two games, but it’s about being realistic and not getting carried away either way.
“If you look at the other teams in the league, there’s clubs spending big money and an awful lot of talent around League One, so it would be a bit disrespectful for me to sit here and think we’d go the full season unbeaten.
“I think the last two games we’ve maybe thought a bit too much into our position and had in the back of our minds about winning the title, so with three games to go now, we’ve stripped everything down, and gone back to basics.
“Like I’ve said to the players this week, we’ve got a weekend break now before we face Goole the following week, that gives us an opportunity to reset and really get back to what we have been doing well and what’s put us in the position at the top of the league which we’re in now.”
As the season enters its business end, Forster is also hoping to see players return from injury: “It’s the nature of sport isn’t it [having injuries within the team].
“But we’ve had to juggle things around a fair bit the last couple of weeks – we had a period of the game in Rochdale where we’ve had to shift Toby Hughes out to the wing as we were short and bring Matt Reid straight into the starting line-up after a long spell out, so I’m hopeful that the two weeks between games gives us the chance to get some bodies back.”
Touching on next week’s opponents, Goole, Forster said: “They’ve been getting stronger as the season has gone on, they’re very well backed and are a team which I think are going places.
“If you look at their last few games, I think they’ve won five from their last six, so they’ll be coming to us looking to keep that going.
“The names within their side, many are players who have been at the top level of the game and bring with them the experience to manage big occasions, there’s no doubt in my mind that they’ll want to come and spoil the party.
“Again though, for us it’s more about concentrating on ourselves.
“We know what we can do when we’re at our best, so for the final three games we have to be at that level, if we do that then I have every confidence come the final hooter at Whitehaven we can look back at ourselves as Champions.”