FC Halifax Town suffered a disappointing 3-2 defeat away to Darlington, despite The Shaymen getting some belated Christmas presents in the debut of Adam Morgan, and the return of Daniel Hone.
The latter has been side lined with an injury for a few weeks, and with Billy Heath’s men having an issue with injuries all over the pitch, to say that Hone’s return was a welcome one would be an understatement. However, the result was certainly far from ideal for the centre back.
“Personally, I feel fine, I’ve been ill this week but that played no part. It’s just gutting that I couldn’t come back and keep a clean sheet but there will be plenty more to come. Just chalk that one off because we can’t change it now. We look forward to New Year’s Day and start winning games again.”
The issue that Halifax have been facing is the number of goals they are shipping at the back. 14 goals have been conceded in their last five games, a statistic that will surely worry everyone involved with the club.
Hone has highlighted the amount of goals as the key issue for his team and believes once that has been addressed, his side can progress.
“We’ll just be trying to stop the goals. That’s where it starts, you can’t win football games when you concede three goals. We’re scoring enough we’ve just got to keep them out. That’s down to us, not just the back four and the goalkeeper but it’s down to the whole team.”
The home side were paying at their new stadium, the first time they have played inside Darlington since the reformation of their club. The crowd were certainly up for the game and created a hostile atmosphere for the travelling Shaymen.
The support seemed to spur their team on as The Quakers were never losing during this game, but Halifax certainly made a case to earn a draw. Adam Morgan scored twice on his debut and players such as Richard Peniket and Matty Kosylo were banging on the door.
“It was 3-2, if we don’t concede the third goal we could have come away and said it’s a draw, fair enough. But we did concede the third and we’re always chasing their tail then. But hopefully there will be a quick turnaround, take them back home on New Year’s Day and rectify.”
It’s now been over a month since Halifax’s last win in a run which sees them out of every cup competition and lying in midtable in the league. However, winning the two games in hand would fire Heath’s men right back into the play off positions. Hone stated that there needs to be a sense of realism at this stage in the season.
“We’ve played two teams in that run from two leagues above us. We’ve got to be a little bit realistic. We’re in a not bad position and there’s still plenty of games left. We’ve got good quality in that team so I’ve got no doubts we will be there or there about we just need people to stick with us and buy into what we’re doing.”
You can see Halifax Town’s next game on New Year’s Day, as they take on Darlington again in the hopes of gaining a measure of revenge at the MBi Shay Stadium.
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