St Francis Rangers assistant manager Whelan: '˜We are becoming harder to break down'

And although they have conceded 11, in each game against Horsham and Eastbourne United AFC, they only let in one goal in the first 45 minutes.

But on both occasions the second half did not go as Whelan and manager Joe Monks had hoped. But Whelan was more disappointed with second half in the Eastbourne match.

Whelan said: “We set up up to try and be competitive like we did against Horsham and for 45 minutes we were. The early goal set us back a little bit but to still be in the game at half time was pleasing.

“We lost our way a little bit in the second half and that’s what the scoreline reflects. It was disappointing we didn’t build on the scoreline from Saturday but for 70 minutes I was pleased.

“We’ve made ourselves harder to break down.”

Rangers are still searching for that elusive first point of the season. They have scored only three goals in their 26 matches and conceded 179.

But Whelan believes there has been progress, especially after the performance against Horsham.

“We came in from the Horsham game on Saturday feeling like we done the club proud and that we had put a real shift in.

“It is a different feeling in the dressing room today. There’s a feeling we’ve let ourselves down and let people at the club down who have put a lot of time and effort in.

“The last 20 minutes we did lose our way and it’s a lesson to learn, especially for the young boys you’ve got to play for 90 minutes.

“Even when you are 3-0 down it’s hard to keep going but you do have to do it. The way we motivate ourselves is we look at that league table and we see we still have no points.

“There’s people at this club who put so much time and effort in that they deserve their club to have points on the board so we look ahead to Saturday and we think we do not want the feeling we have in the dressing room now. That motivates us for Saturday because we do not want to come in at 5pm on Saturday feeling like that again.”

Rangers face Uckfield Town on Saturday but Whelan is looking at wholesale changes to the team.

He said: “We may have a couple of new faces but we are trying to get a settled group together now.

“There were performances in there that were pleasing and parts of the first half were pleasing.

“I think we becoming harder to break down and we are starting to frustrate teams as well which is good.’

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on.

1 Make this website your homepage

2 Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/pages/Sport-Sussex

3 Follow us on Twitter @SportSussex

4 Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!