Furious Rickards warns against complacency

Rainworth Miners Welfare’s angry player-manager Scott Rickards has warned his players they are risking their futures at Kirklington Road if they think they can start winding down their Evo-Stik Northern Premier League campaign, writes Gordon Foster.

The Wrens figured in a 0-0 draw against Loughborough Dynamo in First Division South on Saturday, their uninspiring performance in total contrast to the 4-0 Notts Senior Cup semi-final victory at Retford United the previous Tuesday.

Against Loughborough, Rickards was forced to watch the second half from the dugout after tweaking a hamstring right on half time in the Loughborough game and neither he nor assistant boss Matty Clarke were best pleased by what they witnessed.

A furious Rickards said: "This was end of season stuff in February, and unless there is a big change in attitude we could be having this conversation week in week out for the remaining games - it's not acceptable.

"We need to re-instil an atmosphere in which we go out and try to win matches, however much or however little is at stake, because we need to finish as high up the league as possible.

"If we go into the remaining league games with thoughts of winding down the season we will find it hard to lift ourselves again for the senior cup final. Matt has pulled no punches in the dressing room - he has made it quite clear to the players that too many of them are coasting, and we are not a club that can afford to pay players to do that.

"I could go out tomorrow and recruit a team of youngsters who would be capable of keeping us in mid-table but we want more than that. We need to re-ignite our league season and try to win games to push us back up the league to where we were before Christmas."

Although Rainworth finally managed to achieve the 40-point target widely regarded as the relegation safety net at the weekend, the demise of Eastwood Town will almost certainly see four of those points expunged from the records, leaving then to do it all again.

Rickards, now focusing on Saturday's clash with Scarborough, added: "We've got some games within the next four or five which should be winnable but we've also got some tough ones to come, including Saturday at home to Scarborough. Any manager likes to put one over on a former club, and Rudy Funk [Scarborough's manager] enjoyed a lot of success here.

"We keep emphasising that this is a division where anyone is capable of beating anyone, and Scarborough are the only team to have given us a real hiding this season. So we will have something to prove against them. That night everything seemed to conspire against us - a nightmare journey, a late arrival, a slow start, individual errors, and, it must be said, excellent opposition.

"What happens on Saturday will be down to our attitude, and I need to have 11 players out there with the same commitment as Sam Saunders, who was only 70 per cent fit himself when he replaced me, but still set an example which needs to be followed."