"You wouldn't believe it was the same team" – Bartley praises Marlow response

Photo: Theo Edwards

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Marlow 2, Northwood 0

Marlow got back to winning ways in the Southern League Central Division on Saturday after having been through an underwhelming spell of results and performances.

The Blues deservedly got the better of Northwood at Oak Tree Road on Saturday with Seb D’Aversa and Jack Empson scoring in a 2-0 victory which will just quieten down the noise that was building around the club’s poor season.

It also ends a run of five straight losses in the league, results that have seen the team dip down to 16th in the table when they had been expected to possibly challenge for promotion this season.

Many of those bad results came against teams currently challenging for a play-off spot, however, Bartley knows it’s not been good enough from his side of late and he called the team’s second half performance in the 4-0 derby defeat to Flackwell Heath last week ‘gutless’.

He’ll have demanded a response to that dismal display and that’s what he got, with captain Chris Ovenden typifying the team’s desire to stop the rot and get back to winning ways.

The result moves the team 10 points clear of the league’s relegation zone as there were growing concerns the team could be sucked down into that fight.

“We’ve definitely had a tough spell,” said Bartley. “We’ve restructured the group and generally haven’t progressed as quickly as we’d have liked.

“We’ve seen some flashes of a really good side, but what we’ve lacked in this period is a little bit of experience. We lose our way during games.

“It’s been a little bit unfortunate as we’ve had a couple of matches where the performance has been miles off. But in the main they haven’t been too bad. We just don’t have the experience of navigating our way through games.

“On Saturday we made a couple of changes, but we’ve been persevering with this young side. When they get it right, they’re a great side. We got a 2-0 win on Saturday, but I thought we were very comfortable with that young side. They got it right on Saturday and you wouldn’t believe that was the same team that lost on the Tuesday. It’s frustrating from our end but it was a good performance from our end on Saturday.”

Next is a test of their character and consistency with a trip to relegation threatened Rayners Lane on Saturday.

Rayners sit second bottom and have only 13 points this season, however, they did pull off an unexpected 2-2 draw away to Flackwell Heath on Saturday.

“This is a challenge for this team, they’re a group of good players, but the challenge with young players is consistency,” added Bartley.

“Not always week to week but also during games. You can have a player who has a great 60 minutes and then they switch off for 20 minutes. It’s just part of their journey.

“We’ve not been able to rest them as I usually would. But we now need to train well ahead of the game on Saturday, which is likely to be on because they play on a 4G pitch.

“They have also overhauled their squad, but the new chairman has come in, and he’s spent a bit of money, so we know it’s going to be a tough test.

“We’re ready for it though and are looking to bring in a lad on loan from Wycombe today (Thursday). Another young player, but we want to bag up this result with another good performance on Saturday and hopefully we’ll see this young group start to grow now.”

Having won their last three matches, Chris Ayres’ Flackwell side were heavy favourites to land another straight-forward victory against a struggling side, but Rayners shocked them in the opening half at Wilks Park, racing into a 2-0 lead

A spot of complacency may have crept into their play as they fell 2-0 down in the first half to goals in the 23rd and 44th minutes.

However, they did give themselves a lifeline just before the break when Matty Ayres managed to bundle the ball home from a corner kick.

They grabbed an equaliser through Lewis Patrick with a few minutes left on the clock but ultimately fell short of their goal of claiming three points.

Ayres spoke in the week about the Heathens possibly staging a late challenge for the play-off spots, but this 2-2 draw is a setback to those hopes, however, you dress it up.

With only 16 matches left to play, Flackwell sit 12th in the table, 11 points adrift of fifth placed Hertford Town. If they are to make up that ground in the closing weeks of the season, they’ll need to win matches like this on a much more regular basis.

Ayres will expect to see some sort of response when they visit Northwood this Saturday.