Kinniburgh seeking a positive response after shock setback

Steve Kinniburgh will demand a “positive reaction” from his Corby Town players when they make the trip to AFC Dunstable for the first part of their Easter weekend double-header on Saturday.
By Jon Dunham
Published 17th Apr 2019, 14:52 BST
Updated 18th Apr 2019, 10:27 BST
Steve KinniburghSteve Kinniburgh
Steve Kinniburgh

The Steelmen suffered a shock 4-1 defeat to struggling Welwyn Garden City at Steel Park last weekend.With their season now hanging on the play-offs in the Evo-Stik League South Division One Central, Kinniburgh is desperate for his players to gather some momentum in the final three games of the regular campaign.Corby will play at home in the semi-finals of the extended season on Wednesday, May 1 as they bid to earn promotion to Step 3.But, in the short-term, the aim is to get back on track this weekend.“If there is one positive we can take from last weekend it’s the fact that the performance came with three games to go before the play-offs,” the Corby boss said.“We now need to perform and we need to be a lot better than what we produced on Saturday.“And the good thing is, we know we are better than that.“You don’t play 40-odd games in the season with the majority of them being very good and then have a bad game and see it turn into something more.“Hopefully we have got that sort of performance out of our systems.“We will go into the two games this weekend knowing that we need a positive reaction on Saturday to help set us on the path to the play-offs.”Gathering momentum for the play-offs isn’t the only reason for Kinniburgh wanting to see a reaction this weekend.The Corby boss is still keeping close tabs on his team’s points per game ratio with only five of the winning play-off teams being able to go up from Step 4 this season.Those five who have the best points per game ratio who win their respective play-offs will move up to the next level.The Steelmen remain on course to be safe from that point of view but Kinniburgh is keen to ensure any doubts are put to bed over the Easter weekend with a home clash against Yaxley on Monday (3pm kick-off) following on from the trip to Dunstable.“It’s a strange one because we are actually battling against teams from other divisions rather than the one we play in,” he added.“I have had a look at it and we still have a bit of work to do when it comes to the points per game situation.“We know what we need to do and hopefully we can do that in the two games over this weekend and then go into the final game of the season knowing that if we can go on to win the play-offs then there will be no question marks over whether we can go up.”

Related topics:Corby TownCorbyYaxley