ANOTHER mixed week for Rugby Town has seen Dave Stringers’ side slip down to 14th in the Southern League Central Division.
A comfortable 4-1 win at the weekend against Egham was followed by another miserable midweek evening on the road at Barton – where the 2-0 reverse represented their first ever defeat against the Bedfordshire club in nine matches.
It was also the sixth consecutive Tuesday night league fixture that Valley have failed to return home with a victory.
They now sit six points adrift of the play-off zone, meaning a win at the weekend at home to St.Ives is imperative if they are to get their promotion bid back on track again.
But they will have to improve from Tuesday’s night defeat after failing to build on their weekend success at Egham following a lacklustre performance in defeat to a direct Rovers outfit.
Stringer was again left bemoaning his side’s propensity to gift the opposition soft goals on Tuesday night with one either side of half-time for Barton’s strike pairing of Keshi Anderson and Tony Burnett securing them the points.
The hosts made the better start though, with Burnett dragging his effort from the edge of the box wide, and Kevin Kilroy curling a low free-kick the wrong side of the target.
For Rugby, Seb Lake-Gaskin’s powerful shot also went just past the post and in-form striker David Kolodynski almost capitalised on a poor Barton back-pass by blocking keeper Kyle Forster’s clearance, but unfortunately the ball bounced agonisingly wide.
Kolodynski then forced a save out of Forster after linking well with Sam Youngs and Forster was on-hand again moments later to tip Craig Kelly’s effort over the bar.
Chances came and went for Rugby and on 37 minutes the hosts made them pay when on 37 minutes a breakaway exposed the Town defence and Anderson fired a powerful low shot past Nick Bennion.
Ten minutes after the re-start an error by Rugby skipper Alex Gudger proved costly when he totally missed a long clearance which allowed Burnett to run through and neatly lob the ball over Bennion.
Whilst Valley never really looked like mounting a successful comeback, they did create a series of half chances with Kolodynski firing wide and McBride shooting straight at Forster but they were unable to find a way back into the match.
