The Pewits followed up Saturday’s 0-0 stalemate at home to Heaton Stannington with defeat on the road to North Ferriby. Richard Tracey reflects on his side’s previous two matches and looks ahead to tomorrow’s trip to Dunston UTS.

“The last two games have disappointed me, I feel like we have been out-battled a little bit, teams have got the upper hand on us physically and that has not really been like us, I feel we’ve been a bit timid and soft.”

“Heaton came and worked their socks off and thoroughly deserved the point. There were four or five chances in the game. We certainly had two, and they definitely had two and possibly a third. They probably had the better chances and maybe will feel like they could have come away with a win.

“For us, I don’t think it was a bad point for the way we played, but obviously a point isn’t bad if you rectify that on Tuesday and get a win, and take four points from two games. But, we didn’t do that, so it was a bit disappointing that we didn’t put on a quality performance on Saturday that was good enough to get us a result.

“Heaton came to do a job. They have recruited, got in players that they think are going to get them out of trouble, and you can see that they were a better side than when we played them up at Heaton, so fair play and well done to them. We were probably the luckier of the two sides to get a point, because we were under-par.”

Emley lost 1-0 at North Ferriby on Tuesday evening to record just their second away defeat on the Northern Premier League Division One East season. Despite the setback the Pewits still sit five points clear of third-placed Belper Town. Tracey was frustrated by the first half showing at the Dransfield Stadium.

“Their experience, taking contact, going down and buying fouls in the first half killed the momentum of the game. I don’t think they showed a great deal of quality but looked like from time to time they were still causing us problems. I thought we flattered to deceive and didn’t really cause them many problems.

“For the goal we think we’ve retrieved the second ball, we go to clear it, it gets blocked and drops to their lad and they cross it and score, and all of a sudden we’re 1-0 down. I don’t think we reacted very well.”

“I felt at half-time we let the game pass us by; too much poor decision-making, too much poor execution, we weren’t good enough.

“In the second half, we controlled the game a lot more and I think they were happy for that to happen, it allowed them to put 11 behind the ball and took the sting out of the game.

“I’ve been critical of us at times not creating enough when we’re chasing, but I thought we created two or three good chances. I thought we created three or four opportunities that could’ve presented a better chance than they became, we’ve got to improve our finishing. We didn’t hit the target enough we didn’t make the keeper work.

“In all honesty. I think a point would’ve been a fair result but they had the lead and we weren’t good enough to get that equaliser so you have to say fair play to them.”

“I thought the second half performance was miles better but obviously not good enough to get that goal and that’s something we’ve got to look to address on Saturday.”

Tuesday saw Emmaisa Nzondo make his Pewits debut having joined on loan from Barnsley. He impressed Tracey when Barnsley u23s visited the Fantastic Media Welfare Ground earlier in the season.

“Emmaisa has joined us on loan from Barnsley. He’s a first-year professional, he scored two against us in the county cup game for them, and that’s where we first saw him. I thought he did well in that game.”

“On Tuesday there were glimpses of what he can offer. He was positive, he worked hard. He got limited service in the sense of what his strengths probably are.

“We felt there were some sparks, bright lights out of his performance at different times. This week will be the first time he gets the opportunity to train with us, which will help him, having come in a bit cold on Tuesday night having not worked with us.

“We felt on Saturday against Heaton Stannington we lacked a centre forward obviously we are hopeful to have Laurence Sorhaindo back available, but when someone is full-time and available, you hope that brings a little bit of something else with it, and I felt there were glimpses of that on Tuesday. We’re excited to get him going and hopefully his pace and finishing can cause teams some problems.

“Laurence will be seeing our Physio, Richard Walker at training this week, hopefully getting some feedback. We’ll have a chat with Alex Metcalfe and find out where he’s at. Belchior Rodrigues is training again and hopefully Jack Cowgill will be returning from missing on Tuesday as well.”

The Pewits have faced Saturday’s opponents Dunston UTS twice at home already this season, winning 2-0 in the FA Trophy before a dramatic league encounter ended in a 2-2 draw.

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s match, Tracey is under no illusions about the challenge his side faces.

“Dunston are a team with ambitions of going up. They’ve had a couple more positive results recently. I think they had a couple of unexpected (in terms of the league table) results, but it’s going to be a tough game.

I rate them as one of, if not the best footballing side in the league, with some good quality and good experience. They’ve got some top, top players, and it’s going to be as tougher game as it’s going to get.”