Somerset Premier Division

Staplegrove 3 Berrow 1

BERROW manager Dave Keirle has branded his side's first half performance during Saturday's defeat at Staplegrove as 'the worst he has been involved in' and demanded improvements from his players.

An appalling first half display saw Berrow trailing 3-0 at the interval - and Keirle was disappointed that his side were unable to build on last week's win at home to Wrington Redhill.

Keirle said: "That first half is the worse performance I've ever been involved in in football.

"It took us going 3-0 down to wake up and that's unacceptable.

"After such a great performance last week it gave us the perfect platform to build from.

"Myself and Steve (Osgood, assistant manager) will discuss selection for next week but there will be changes throughout, and we will keep changing it until we get the right formula.

"We have 18 league matches left, the next two in particular are huge and both at home against teams around us.

"After those two games we have an away fixture, one more home then it's nine aways on the bounce.

"It's frustrating because on paper the individual players are superb, we just need to find the right nucleus and go from there.

"I'm confident if we can get two or three wins on the bounce, we will become hard to beat.

"It comes down to confidence, and it's my job to instil that, but we go again Saturday at home to Clutton."

In a game where confidence should have been high, Berrow never got a grip on the game and found themselves 1-0 down when a cross from the right was powered through the helpless Barritt's legs for 1-0.

It was soon 2-0 on 25 minutes when ex-Berrow striker Joe Holder broke away and rounded the goalkeeper, before finishing expertly from a tight angle.

Berrow didn't put any resistance up and inside 30 minutes were 3-0 down, when another cross from the right was headed home and Berrow were in all kinds of trouble.

Half time couldn't come quick enough so Berrow could make some adjustments to the side.

Jack Smith replaced Ben Gates and there was a few positional changes and it paid off straight away, with substitute Smith finishing with a deft flick around the on rushing goalkeeper for 3-1 on 48 minutes.

Berrow were now pouring men forward in desperate search of a goal and Staplegrove could've added to there tally on two occasions, one cross-come-shot was tipped onto the post by Barritt and Holder almost made the game safe late on with a powerful effort that crashed against the underside of the bar.