Vauxhall Motors 3 Worcester City 2 (From Worcester News)

Vauxhall Motors 3 Worcester City 2

5:45pm Sunday 8th January 2012 in Reports By Steve Carley, @stevecarleyWN #WENsport

TWO defeats in a row is not how Worcester City would have envisaged the start to 2012.

Yet, following Saturday’s 3-2 loss at a wind-swept Vauxhall Motors, that is exactly the scenario for the St George’s Lane club.

The new year is barely a week old and City, who went six unbeaten in Blue Square Bet North at the end of 2011, have already shipped six goals in back-to-back away outings.

As against Gloucester on January 1, they paid the price for sloppy defending and their penchant for costly errors returned at Rivacre Park.

Plainly, Worcester have the firepower at their disposal to cause most teams problems in this division having scored in all but two of their league games this season.

They created a hatful of chances on Merseyside as well, forcing home skipper Paul Jones to put through his own net in the first-half before Mike Symons struck his 14th goal of the campaign late on.

Tom Thorley, Neil Cartwright, Kevin O’Connor and substitute Michael Taylor also went close to further increasing their tally.

However, by the time Symons had pounced nine minutes from time, the visitors were already chasing the game through errors of their own making.

There are only so many times you can summon the spirit to hit back after conceding first and City have had to do that far too many times of late.

In five of their last six matches, Carl Heeley’s team have fallen behind but went on to draw against league leaders Hyde and beat Hinckley United and Gloucester.

However, they were unable to repeat the feat at Whaddon Road on New Year’s Day, losing 3-1, or against a struggling Motors side missing its leading scorer through suspension.

Worcester have frailties in defence and three clean sheets in 24 games suggests as much.

Manager Heeley, himself a former centre-half, had made it clear his team needed to tighten up at the back, particularly on their travels, yet they held out for just six minutes on Saturday.

With seemingly no danger around him, Lee Ayres played the ball square across the 18-yard line, Craig Mahon nipped in, was initially denied by James Dormand but Josh Wilson tucked in the rebound.

Similarly for the third, the keeper was left exposed and, despite saving from Wilson, was beaten by Cole Stockton following up.

Dormand did get Ryan Clarke off the hook in the second-half by blocking from Stockton after the centre-half’s weak header had let the striker in, but it’s these lapses that are hurting City.

The men from the Lane have been entertaining to watch this season but a ‘you score three, we’ll score four’ approach is not conducive to a play-off challenge.

Remarkably, despite a disappointing seven days, they remain firmly in contention, four points off the top five, after eighth-placed Corby, who have a game in hand, lost to Halifax, fellow play-off hopefuls and City’s next opponents.

The damage to Worcester’s quest has been surprisingly minimal; the challenge now is to ensure it stays that way.