Matlock Town head to Ashton United on Saturday encouraged by signs that their injury crisis is showing definite signs of easing.

 

Skipper James Lukic and fellow defender Ryan Davis are expected to be fit for selection once again, and with striker Steve Taylor appearing to have got through the twenty minutes of last weekend's abandoned home clash with Kendal unscathed after his ankle injury, along with Paul Riley who also returned after missing the defeat at Whitby through illness, joint bosses Phil Brown and Gareth Williams are feeling more contented.

 

"With one or two more of the missing players back, we'll hopefully have a settled side and we reckon we'll be alright" said Brown. "It's been frustrating these last few weeks as we've had a lot of good players out all at once. And when you think you've got one back, we've had another one out. They say luck evens itself out over a season, so hopefully things will turn in our favour now. We go into the busy Christmas and New Year period when we hope to get a few wins under our belts."

 

An encouraging sight before kick off last weekend was striker Simon Barraclough running relatively comfortably around the Geoquip Stadium pitch. Matlock's leading scorer collected a painful knee injury early on in the Gladiators' 3-1 home win over Stamford back on November 6.

 

"He's getting nearer and obviously we hope he'll keep progressing" said Brown. "But we're taking a gently-gently approach for it was a bad injury and we don't want to rush him back too quickly and lose him for longer, but we're hoping he might be involved over the Christmas period."

 

Fellow striker Dene Cropper remains on the sidelines with the extent of his knee injury still unclear. He limped out of Matlock's 3-0 defeat at Whitby a fortnight ago at the interval.

 

"We're still awaiting news on his injury" confirmed Brown. "He's trying to arrange an assessment through the PFA. He felt it go and thought it was his cruciate again but then other opinion has said it could be his cartilage or his medial or lateral ligament. At the moment we just don't know."

 

The other injury absentee is defender Glenn Kirkwood who came to grief during the pre match warm up in the UniBond League Challenge Cup exit at Eastwood Town a month ago. There were indications that Kirkwood was getting close to a comeback having trained again last Thursday but then came a setback.

 

"He trained but then limped away again. It's probably a recurrence of old achilles trouble or an old foot injury so we'll just have to wait and see" said Brown.

 

The defensive headache was eased somewhat ahead of the Kendal game with the work experience signing of 18 year old centre half Cameron Fearon from Chesterfield, who partnered Dave McNicholas at the heart of the back four.

 

"Cameron did okay in the twenty minutes we saw of him. We'd watched him play at Chesterfield and we were very impressed with him and we want to see a bit more of him. Conditions were obviously difficult on Saturday so it'll be interesting to see him in conditions more condusive to football. We brought Macca (McNicholas) in on Saturday. He was available and although James Lukic said he might be fit, we thought that playing Macca was the right way to go. Macca is experienced and would fit in well alongside Cameron. We didn't want to risk James in those conditions and hopefully we'll have our skipper back at Ashton on Saturday."

 

The Gladiators are still looking to strengthen their squad , but as Brown admits, the search might not be quite as intensive if the injury list soon clears.

 

"We could have another quality player in for Saturday. We've been pursuing two lads both who we feel will add quality to what we've got and we'll have to see what materialises. With players coming back its probably not quite as urgent but when you're trying to mould a squad again after all the departures, you want that extra quality."  

 

Matlock's inconsistent form during their injury stricken period of three wins and three defeats in their last six games, has seen them drop to eighth spot, so a win at 17th placed Ashton would be handy, if not essential, to reignite their play off challenge.

 

Since Ashton's relegation from the Blue Square (formerly Conference) North League at the end of the 2004/05 season, all four league encounters between the sides have finished as draws, with two 1-1 results at Ashton and a couple of goalless games at the Geoquip Stadium.

 

The Robins have proved to be a tough nut to crack as Matlock have struggled to find any kind of form against them in the last two seasons, in spite of a vastly superior league placing.

 

"Ashton's a difficult place to go to, they've been a bit of a bogey side and we've not really done ourselves justice in the last couple of years against them, but with a few more bodies back we'll be going there looking for a good performance and a good result" said Brown.

 

The Town joint boss thought that the referee made the right decision in abandoning the Kendal game after just twenty minutes.

 

An 8-15 am pitch inspection was made with Kendal saying they were leaving the Lake District at 9 am and the pitch was free of water and in good condition even after the heavy rain of the preceeding week. But light rain started falling at 8-45 and this eventually turned into a torrential downpour just before mid day. Conditions appeared to be easing about an hour later only for the rain to return once again, leaving pockets of water on the pitch.

 

"We thought we could get it on at two o clock and to be fair to the referee he stuck to his decision to play after Kendal had travelled all that way. But it soon became obvious once the game was under way that there would be little quality football. The ball was sticking in the water in the warm up so his decision was right."

 

Gladiators Vice Chairman Tom Wright said that despite the fact that the match did not finish, their officials were encouraged by the work done by the new drainage system installed during the summer at the Geoquip Stadium.

 

"With all the heavy rain the match would probably have been put off hours earlier had the drainage work not been done" Wright said. "The pitch was in great condition at breakfast time and we had people including our Vice President Dave Reynolds forking the pitch and the water was running away well where the drainage channels were, so we know that all the hard work in the summer has had a very positive effect. It was good to see a referee with a positive attitude who wanted to see the game played but in the end there had been too much rain in too short a time and the decision to abandon the game was correct."

 

Matlock turn their attention to the Derbyshire Senior Cup on Tuesday with a 3rd Round trip to Northern Counties East League Premier Division high flyers Glapwell.

 

The Hall Corner club are managed by former Gladiators full back Les McJannett and have another ex Town player Kevin Gee on their management team as well as former Matlock defender Matt Varley in their side.

 

"It'll be a very difficult game and they've always given us a tough test when we've gone there in pre season" said Brown. "They pushed Ilkeston close in the semi final of the competition last season and are doing very well this season. They're wanting promotion and they'll see us as a scalp and it's up to us to make sure that doesn't happen."