Rustington suffer two defeats

Blues lost in the cup to Storrington, having lost to Rye in the John O’Hara Cup last four the previous week, and then lost 1-0 in the league at home to leaders Lancing on Saturday and 4-0 at Seaford on Tuesday.

Torode said: “We’re a bit down in the dumps at the moment and are feeling sorry for ourselves.

“There’s nothing left to play for now, apart from personal pride and it’s now down to me to get the players motivated again.

“I think it’s just a confidence thing. We’ve still got the same players at the end of the day. We just need to perk up and get going again and I’ll be giving a few youth team players their chance in the final few games.”

Tuesday’s defeat at Seaford was Blues’ fifth successive loss and came after they went in 0-0 at half-time, but Torode said: “The first half wasn’t too bad but the second was awful.

“We lost Simon Clayton to concussion in the first half, maybe that affected us, but we conceded in the first minute of the second half for the third time in four games and, from then on, it was very disappointing.”

Seaford opened the scoring through Lucas Mann, before Ryan Knight doubled the lead midway through the second half.

Mann got his second on 76 minutes and Tom Chapman added a fourth in the final minute.

Lancing got the only goal of the game on Saturday through Aaron MacMillan on 35 minutes.

Torode said: “They were a bit sharper, as tends to be the case when you’ve one team on a bit of a low and one team going for the title.

“They’ve had a bad run themselves so they were up for it, whereas we were feeling a bit tired. “

RUSTINGTON v Seaford: Challen; Bennett, Wimbleton, Neal, Green; Sayers, Jones, Clayton, O’Connor, Butt; Boxall. Subs: Hudson (Clayton 20), Adams (Jones 65), Matthews (Green 70), Kirkham.

v Lancing: Bonetti; Bennett, Neal, Wimbleton, Green; Clayton, Matthews, Butt, Boxall; Huckett, Kirkham. Subs: Hudson (Huckett 55), Darwin (Kirkham 65), O’Connor (Matthews 70), Jones, Sayers.