Broxburn Athletic boss Chris Townsley has challenged his players to show what they’re capable of producing over the course of a full 90 minutes - and says it needs to start happening quickly if they want to contend for promotion.
The Brox are unbeaten after three league games but surrendered a lead against both Musselburgh Athletic last week and Blackburn United on Saturday as they drew both games.
Athletic were comfortably the better side in the opening 45 minutes against United at the weekend but only had Craig Henderson’s strike to show for their efforts.
But it was an altogether different display after the break with United deservedly taking a share of the spoils with Athletic gifting the visitors a 64th minute goal.
Shaun Donoghue’s clearance was blocked and bounced off the bar before the keeper seemingly had redeemed himself by producing a fine save in the follow-up from Richie Hutton only for Laurie Devine to stab home the rebound.
The Brox ended up clinging on for a point after Andy Gillen’s 87th minute red card with Blackburn missing two great chances to take the win at the death.
Townsley said: “I thought we dominated the first half and should have been further ahead.
“Credit to Blackburn for coming back into in the second half. We gifted them a goal but they deserved it to be fair.
“It was a Jekyll and Hyde performance. You could see in the first half that we can play and what we want to be about but we need to show that for 90 minutes.”
He added: “We didn’t come out in the second half at all which was really disappointing. We took our foot off the pedal. We didn’t play well enough.
“You can see from the first half that we can play but it’s important to make that count when you’re in top in games like we were in the first half.
“They’ve regrouped at half-time and played well and credit to them but we need to do better.
“It’s a work in progress to some degree because there’s been a few new signings but you can only use that excuse for so long. They should be starting to gel quicker than they are.
“We can’t really get away from the fact that these are the type of games we need to be winning if we want to be challenging for the league. We need to be hitting full stride soon.”
The gaffer had special praise for goalscorer Henderson and admitted he views him as crucial to his plans this season, commenting: “Hendo’s been great since he came in. We’ve given him a bit of a free reign just to go and play and you can see his quality and technique is really good.
“It’s just about him having the confidence to do it regularly and knowing that we view him as one of our main players who can have a positive impact on a game.”
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