Mildenhall Town manager calls for players to show their quality during upcoming away run

Ricky Cornish has admitted hard-fought victories may need to become the main staple of Mildenhall Town’s festive period.

The manager made that assessment after watching his team overcome out-of-form Long Melford 2-1 on a chilly Tuesday night at Recreation Way.

Cornish’s men are now facing up to the prospect of four straight away games in the Thurlow Nunn League Premier Division, which includes a trip to bottom-of-the-table Swaffham Town on Saturday (3pm) and 18th-placed Whitton United seven days later.

On paper, at least, those are favourable fixtures, but with sides scrapping for points at both ends of the table, Cornish has insisted there will be no easy games for his third-placed outfit.

“We made a few changes tonight (against Melford) and I’ve been told we made 18 chances, took two of them,” he said. “It probably could have been a couple more even though we struggled to get going in the first half. In the second half we were much the better side and deserved to win the game.

“We want to keep momentum going and that’s three or four unbeaten now, so we’re going the right way.

“This is our last home game before Christmas and we’ve got a few tough away games coming up.

“You’ve seen tonight, they worked really, really hard. They pressed high, tried to stop us from playing and at times they done a really good job of it.

“I think it’s going to be like that over the next few weeks, so it’s down to us. We’ve got to show our quality on the ball.

“There’s no issues with it off the ball because we work really hard, but it’s on the ball where we need to show the quality we have.

“If we do that often enough then we’ll hopefully pick up plenty of points.”

Mildenhall will go in search of another victory at basement boys Swaffham at the weekend boosted by the return to the squad of goalkeeper Josh Pope.