Chris Bartlett is determined to prevent March Town’s season becoming a failure.
The Hares chief believes the club’s hopes of winning promotion in the Thurlow Nunn League First Division are over after a 3-1 defeat at the hands of table-toppers Wivenhoe last Saturday.
That was an eighth reverse in 15 league games and leaves March destined for mid-table mediocrity unless they can spark an upturn in form.
Bartlett, speaking ahead of the visit of King’s Lynn Reserves to the GER tomorrow (3pm), said: “Losing so many games has really killed our promotion hopes and we will be lucky if we can finish in the top six from this position.
“It is looking like a failure from myself and the players currently as we haven’t done anywhere near well enough.
“Now we owe the club the best levels of performance and commitment we can muster to make sure the second half of the season is much better than the first.
“The challenge is to put things right and try to at least match last season’s tally of 62 points. We’ve got a long way to go to do that.
“We’re still involved in two cup competitions and they have now become huge parts of our season.”
March’s attempt to be the first team to beat leaders Wivenhoe got off to a bad start when they fell behind early on.
The visitors were gifted a second goal just before the break although Shane Cooke delivered an instant response to halve the arrears.
March bossed the second half, but were unable to find the net again before being hit on the counter-attack late on.
Bartlett added: “We gave Wivenhoe their opening two goals by failing to pick up from a set-piece and then playing a blind back-pass, but we got straight back into the game before half-time.
“It was all us in the second half when we had lots of possession, but we couldn’t hit the target.
“Had we managed to get level, I felt we would have gone on to win the game because Wivenhoe were very uncomfortable, but we ended up being hit on the
breakaway late on.
“It just proved again that we are not good enough in the attacking third.”
Leading scorer Ondre Odain missed the Wivenhoe game and faces a spell out with ankle ligament trouble.
Full-back Kieren Evans made his debut as a substitute. He is the younger brother of midfielder Gerard Evans.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here