‘No complaints’ from Nunn as Diamonds are beaten at Ilkeston

Former Rushden & Diamonds star Lee Tomlin was among the home team’s scorers while a goal from Fraser Corden wasn’t enough for Nunn’s team as they were condemned to their 18th loss of the campaign.

With Hednesford Town claiming a 3-1 victory at Bedford Town, Diamonds dropped back to the foot of the Southern League Premier Central and are now 11 points adrift of safety with 17 games to go.

Having overseen a 2-1 success against St Ives Town last Monday, Nunn’s team were unable to follow it up and the manager admitted: “The best team won, without a doubt.

“I thought they were a really good side and put the ball into dangerous areas but the boys kept on fighting to the end. They never gave up.

“But when you come to places like this, you know you’re going to have to dig in and you need things to go your way.

“We nearly got to half-time at 0-0, which would have been brilliant but the goal gave them a bit of a boost.

“We said at half-time that if they got a second goal, even if there was five minutes left and we got it back to 2-1 you still have time to get another goal.

“Who would have thought that after 75 minutes they would get players booked for time-wasting? No-one saw that coming.

“We stuck to our guns and it was hard work and a great strike from Fraser that got us back in the game.

“It didn’t stay 2-1 long enough to put them under any real pressure. We needed to keep it 2-1 for a bit longer.

“Overall, there’s no complaints, the better team won but I am just pleased that the boys didn’t stop working until the end.”

Diamonds weren’t helped by the fact that central defenders Ryan Hughes and recent signing Luke Massingham were ruled out through injury while Miguel Ngwa and Jack Connor have gone back to Northampton Town after their loan spells expired.

Another young Cobbler Peter Abimbola played at Ilkeston but his loan stay at Hayden Road is also now up and when asked if he would like to get them back, Nunn said: “I’d like to but I understand Northampton have got to look after themselves.

“They have been brilliant, I will say that. I think Northampton would like them to go a little bit higher.

“We have got to try to get our own players in and not be dependent on other people.

“That’s not where we are at the moment but it’s where we want to get to.

“Northampton have been brilliant letting us have those three players.

“It was a tough day on Friday. We got gazumped on a couple of deals I thought we were going to get through.

“You can’t fault the performance, we’re just not at the levels we need to be at.

“I don’t think we could have played much better than we did with what we had available and Ilkeston have just got some real men and real bits of quality in their team.”