MARK Beesley has called upon his Warrington Town side to learn from their “sobering” home defeat to Curzon Ashton.
Yellows fell victim to a clinical display from the visitors on Bank Holiday Monday as the Nash rode away from Cantilever Park with a 4-1 victory in a game of few chances at either end.
> The full verdict on Town's 4-1 home defeat to Curzon Ashton
It was a second defeat in three days for Beesley’s stretched squad, who now look set to be without key defender Evan Gumbs for a significant period with a hernia injury.
“From our point of view, it’s clear our squad depth isn’t good enough. We’ve got too many injuries and it’s caught up with us,” he said.
“We’ve had to ask people to play two games in three days when we normally wouldn’t but fair play to them for sticking their hands up.
“For me, there’s nothing in the game for 40 minutes. We knew what they were going to do and they’re good at it – they sit in a low block and they counter.
“We spoke about getting in at half time and changing a few things, but we give two set-piece goals away.
“The second is never a penalty in a million years for me but the first is terrible from us – really poor.”
As Beesley mentioned, two goals from dead-ball situations in as many minutes just before the break set the game up perfectly for a Curzon side who had been content to absorb pressure and play on the counter-attack, with Jordan Richards curling home a free kick before Will Hayhurst converted a penalty shortly afterwards.
Hayhurst then fired home his second following a mistake in the Town defence before another breakaway saw Isaac Sinclair round off the scoring in injury time after Dylan Mottley-Henry had pulled a goal back for the hosts.
“Dylan worked hard and I’m glad he managed to score a goal,” Beesley said after the on-loan South Shields forward opened his account for the club.
“He’s not played as much as he would have liked so it’s going to take him time to get up to speed.
“There’s times where he looks a bit rusty but there’s other times where he looks a threat. I was pleased he got his goal.
“We couldn’t play Isaac (Buckley-Ricketts) today – his effort is off the scale and it’s asking for an injury, so we had to rest him a little bit as we can’t afford for him to be injured.
“Matty Grivosti is still working his way back as well – it’s going to need time and patience from me and the rest of the lads, but we’ll give them that.”
It is now three wins and three defeats from six National League North games for Town while Curzon managed to emphatically continue their unbeaten start to the campaign having beaten promotion favourites Scunthorpe United on Saturday.
Beesley says the Tameside outfit can be held up as an example for his side as to how to operate as an established Step Two side among clubs with greater resources.
He also paid tribute to the Yellows fans, with more than 1,200 piling into the ground to watch the game.
“Curzon are a benchmark for a club like us and the smaller clubs at this level,” he said.
“They’ve been surviving and thriving here for years – they’ve got good players and a really good manager. For me, they are the kind of club we need to be looking at.
“From our point of view, we were beaten and it’s disappointing but we can’t lose confidence and belief.
“I must say the crowd were fantastic today – there’s more of 1,000 of our supporters in again and they’re sticking with us.
“They clapped us off at the end despite the result – they’re understanding the effort we’re putting in and what’s going on.
“They know we’ve got Jay Harris, Bohan Dixon, Josh Amis, Evan Gumbs and Matty McDonald all missing who would all probably be in our strongest team.
“They’re big losses and we can’t carry that at this level, but we have to get on with it and we have to improve.
“We have to learn from these kinds of sobering experiences and keep going. There’s no point in feeling sorry for ourselves.
“We’ve got nine points from six games – it’s an average start but it’s a start.
“It’s a tough league and every game is a tough game – teams are ruthless against us and we have to be more that way.”
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