Tom talks - after the Whitby game

Another away defeat when his side should have got a least a draw. This was Spartans' manager Tom Wade's assessment following his side's 2-1 loss at Whitby on Boxing Day.

"The number of times we've lost away from home when we really should have picked up points is incredible," he said. "If we had achieved what we should have achieved on the road we would be second or third in the league.

"On Thursday I thought, after a scrappy first ten minutes, that we bossed the game, getting tackles in, holding the ball in midfield and winning our headers. Really, over the first 40 minutes, it was mostly us. Robbie [Dale] produced a fantastic strike to put us ahead after 22 minutes following great work by Nipa [Dan Maguire] in pulling the ball back. Nipa worked his socks off all afternoon. He was brilliant but he can't do it all by himself."

Blyth conceded eight minutes later through Shaun Henry.

Wade commented: "Another soft goal! It's embarrassing how often it happens. However it wasn't a corner in the lead up and they had a man offside but we should be clearing our lines better, to be honest.

"Matty Wade then had to go off with an injury and after that we struggled a bit in the air in midfield although Craig Hubbard did really well after coming on. Throughout the game we had enough of the ball to win the game-but when you have the ball you have to do something with it.

"In the last ten minutes we lost our way a bit and went 'route one' but credit to Whitby, they did well and did a job on us and scored very late on. Having said that we should have come away with a draw at least. We went for the win and, with hindsight, maybe should have settled for a point.