WE are exactly half-way through our Nationwide League Division Three campaign now and still in with a chance of the play-offs.

That can't be bad in our first season in the Football League can it?

After Saturday's disappointing 3-2 defeat at Halifax we now find ourselves six points off the play-offs, but remember we've still got games in hand over a number of our rivals.

So, yes, we're still hanging on in there but, of course, will all know there's room for improvement -- there has to be.

We haven't got enough points in the first half of the season and if we were to get the same in the second half it wouldn't be sufficient for the play-offs.

So that tells us exactly how much we have to improve. I reckon we need to get something between 40 and 43 points in the second half of the campaign and I certainly wouldn't rule that out.

Now that the Christmas and New Year matches are well and truly behind us we've got a great group of games coming up in the league with Brighton and Hull visiting Aggborough and four very difficult away encounters.

That includes the re-arranged matches with Plymouth and Shrewsbury as well as Mansfield and Carlisle.

It's makes it a very testing time for us, but I'm convinced there's still a lot to come from our team. Obviously, there are some aspects we need to brush up on and fans can rest assured that we'll do exactly that.

I don't think we are going to be a prolific scoring team, but we should get enough goals to win us matches.

Anyway, since my last column we've had a little bit of a run with five matches unbeaten which was okay.

The Mansfield victory was pleasing, although we should have scored more goals, but we can always complain about that.

The draw at Torquay was disappointing from start to finish and, of course, Saturday's defeat at Halifax was a blow after we had come back from 2-0 down with goals from John Durnin and Neil Mackenzie. But, in fairness, I have to say I thought we played very well at The Shay.

People are saying we are conceding again from set-pieces, but I don't know what they expect us to do in situations like that.

When they scored their first goal the referee was asking our players to go back ten yards and then he allows Halifax to roll the ball into the bottom corner while we're organising the 'wall'. The second was a goal in a million, he just put the free kick into the top corner.

So, in our last two away games we've taken just one point, but hopefully there'll be times when our return will be better to help put us closer to the play-off places.

We said we would improve as the season goes along and I genuinely think we have done that. People are always doom and gloom when you lose a match and, of course, nobody likes to, but it is part of the game.

I felt, though, that there were a lot of plus points to come out of the game at Halifax. Some of the football we played from time to time was really good.

Young Andrew Corbett came in for his first full league appearance and did well and there were many other good performances. But it's always difficult to go to places like Halifax and we did well to come back after being 2-0 down.

Halifax put 11 men behind the ball and never made any attempt to play football, just to kick the ball as far away as they could. Sometimes that can be very difficult to break down.