Well, bear in mind that at the beginning of the month we pointed you to this blog by Rich Lord within our blog, a sort of 'keep the faith' type plea;
http://marinerstrustblog.weebly.com/1/post/2014/03/salisbury-preview-revisited-happy-march.html
Then March began with a very early Craig Disley goal in a 2-0 home win vs Salisbury.
We then won 4 out of 8, drawing 2 and losing 2, so we are 14 points better off.
The 2 defeats were of course the recent home defeat by Luton; largely self inflicted by conceding so soon after scoring through defensive hesitancy, and failure to convert chances, and also the FGR away defeat, which was a poor start, and we couldn't even blame the floodlights.....
Even the 2 March draws have been frustrating - how did Macclesfield get a point from us? How didn't their 'keeper get sent off? Why did we leave a Hereford player unmarked, again soon after we had taken the lead?
But overall, we won more games in March than January and February combined. We conceded less than a goal a game and kept 3 clean sheets, and scored 11. We have hovered around the playoff places, between 5th and 9th. By beating rivals Nuneaton and Salisbury, we may have helped kill off their playoff dreams.
The downside is, we needed to win at least four. We currently stand in 6th, and at least 9 teams remain in contention. Oddly, that may be a good thing, as they play each other and they can't all keep winning! We still have games in hand on every side except Braintree. (Don't get me started on Braintree...)
There are 9 league games remaining, all in April and whilst March was an improvement another 4 wins MIGHT not be enough. Also, we play Alfreton, Kidderminster, Halifax and Braintree; 4 more rivals for playoff slots. So all the remaining games are important but particularly those 4!
So, this week sees trips to Wrexham then Kidderminster. Wrexham who of course we recently beat, have had a pretty shocking season, especially compared to last year, and are out of the playoff race. Whereas Kidderminster are thereabouts, despite being on their 3rd boss of the season. We have just won our last 2 away games, but its very tough to predict any games at this level at the moment - even runaway champions-to-be Luton have lost 2 in 4 recently and were far from unbeatable-looking when they er...beat us.
By 5pm Saturday, we may have a clear idea of what we need to do to get into the playoffs. It will be easier to calculate what we need to do, the maths more straightforward, when we have 7 left instead of 9, and when rivals like Halifax and Nuneaton will only have 5 and 4 games left respectively. Those 2 play each other on Saturday actually, suppose a draw would suit us?
By way of a quick Wrexham preview; we seem to have almost a fully fit squad, with the exception of Paul Bignot. Squad rotation time maybe as games come thicknfast? One enforced change tomorrow will be the replacement of suspended Scott Kerr, presumably by Andi Thanoj.
Anyway, UTM, a vital month starts tomorrow; 4 home games, 5 away, let's get behind the lads!!!!