Law: Poppies must learn to grind things out

Action from Kettering Town's 2-1 defeat to Redditch United. Picture by Peter Short

Despite being in possession of one of the best away records in the Evo-Stik Southern League Premier Division this season, the Poppies have endured a miserable time on their own ground and suffered a fifth defeat in 10 outings on Tuesday night when they were beaten 2-1 by Redditch United.

Kettering had raced into an early lead courtesy of James Brighton’s goal after just 49 seconds.

But they were unable to add to it and then their defensive frailties struck again in the second half as poor mistakes handed Redditch the three points.

Law believes the problem is more down to mentality than anything else.

And he knows it is up to him to find the answers if the Poppies are to salvage anything from a season that, before it started at least, had promised much.

The Kettering boss said: “It’s a mindset isn’t it? It’s not a certain individual.

“Collectively, at one given time, they seem to crack and I am struggling to work out why.

“Goals are really hard to come by. We do create chances and we do score goals, there haven’t been many games in which we haven’t scored.

“But we have to learn how to hang in there and grind things out.

“If you grind out a 1-0 on a Tuesday night then that’s down to having a good, strong mentality.

“But we seem to quaver under the fact we haven’t scored more than one goal.

“If the opposition work hard and keep us down to one then we need to keep them down to nought.

“The problem I have that whoever I seem to put in there, it’s resulting in a mistake.

“But it’s me who has to answer the questions because it’s the same thing week in, week out.”