GERRY Luczka faces the task of repairing Boro’s leaking defence which has conceded 14 goals in their last three league matches as they prepare to entertain Woodley Sports on Saturday in their second meeting in eight days.
All the good work in Friday’s FA Cup first qualifying round victory over Woodley at Cheadle Town’s ground was undone by a kamikaze-style capitulation at Garforth Town in the UniBond Division One North on Tuesday night when they lost 4-2 after going 2-0 up inside the first 13 minutes.
Mark Drew and Tom Brooks handed Radcliffe the dream start in Yorkshire only for some monumental blunders to hand all four goals to the Garforth attack before half-time.
Eddie Stanford had put Boro on a high on Friday by grabbing the winner over Woodley from the penalty spot six minutes from time to guarantee at least £4,500 in prize money for the club coffers, but the director of football must now turn his attention to rebuilding his side’s defensive confidence.
Luczka is in no doubt that Woodley will be out for revenge after their cup exit, but is more concerned about plugging his leaky defence.
If the individual errors which littered their first-half performance at Garforth on Tuesday night are evident again at Stainton Park, it will be a cakewalk for Woodley.
In the aftermath of the Garforth match, Luczka said: “I know what happened in the first half. It was absolutely appalling defending.
“We have actually laid the ball on a plate for them — four times. It’s just rank bad defending.
“We were 2-0 up and in a very comfortable position, we just needed to hang on to that for 15 to 20 minutes. But we then concede a penalty and the rest are just individual errors.
“If you can’t defend then you’ve got a bit of a problem.”
It erupted into a bad-tempered encounter and it has to be said the referee failed to control the game adequately.
“I don’t think the referee helped matters,” continued Luczka. “But we can’t blame him for any of what’s gone on. At the end of the day it’s down to individuals.
“You can’t point the finger at anything else. Leading 2-0, we were playing some good football but we made mistake after mistake after mistake.
“What’s extremely alarming is that we’ve conceded 14 goals in our last three league matches.
“We’ve conceded an average of four goals a game for the last four games. That’s got to stop.”
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