Gill to free the shackles
By Derek Bish

Monday 1st March 2010

JERRY Gill is to abandon Weymouth’s cautious approach as he bids to pull off the great escape from the Blue Square South, an achievement he believes is still within reach.

The Terras’ terrible away run continued as they lost 4-0 at Bromley on Saturday, but Gill believes if a couple of decisions had gone his side’s way they could have got a result on their travels.

However, it was not to be and the Weymouth players are set to be freed from the shackles of a defensive 5-4-1 formation in a bid to somehow survive their perilous situation – they are now eight points adrift of safety.

“What we’ve tried to do is stabilise the team and steady the ship,” said Gill. “Obviously that worked to an extent against Bath and Braintree but we’ve got 11 games left so it’s time to start getting three points on the board.

“We believe in the dressing room that the great escape can happen – if we didn’t believe that then there would be something wrong.

“We’ve got a run of home games where we have to earn the right to play in these big games.

“When you go to places like Bromley, that’s when you find out who your characters are. I’m disappointed about Saturday but we have to lift ourselves for tomorrow night.”

The Terras fell behind to an early penalty when Jamie McGuinness was adjudged to have made a foul in the box, but Gill insists the Rushden loanee was hard done by.

“We conceded a very dubious penalty,” he said. “Jamie McGuinness has taken the ball and suddenly you are down 1-0 in four minutes, making it a tough decision to take.

“We buried the demons of going a goal behind against Braintree so I thought we would get back in the game.”

Poor defending led to Bromley doubling their advantage but teenage striker Luke Benbow then appeared to be fouled when through on goal, only to be denied a free-kick and the certain red card that would have followed for the offender.

“The referee failed to give a decision, let alone a sending off – it probably made his mind up knowing he would have had to send him off,” said Gill. “I spoke to him and he said he may have got it wrong which makes it even harder to swallow.”

But although Gill was unhappy with the decisions, he was more disappointed with his team’s failings.

“What I wasn’t too pleased about was our lack of willingness to roll our sleeves up,” he said.