Peterborough Sports will be stretched this season, but they will not be making any excuses

Sports were unlucky to lose 2-0 to Spennymoor at Pims Park last weekend after conceding two goals in the final 11 minutes.

Injury problems struck the squad before that game and a thin squad will be stretched over the Bank Holiday weekend when Sports face two games in three days, at Hereford United on Saturday and at home to Brackley on Monday (3pm).

Sports won both of those fixtures last season.

Striker Mark Jones pulled out of the Spennymoor match after feeling a hamstring twinge in the pre-match warm-up, while summer signing Matt Tootle faces a lengthy lay-off with nerve damage suffered during a training session 48 hours earlier.

Defender Matty Miles is unavailable for the weekend and the two matches will probably come too soon for central defender Ryan Fryatt who is due to return to training on Thursday.

"It was frustrating against Spennymoor as we should never have lost that game,” Gash insisted.

"And we will be stretched this weekend with two games in quick succession because we have a small squad and a few injuries to deal with.

"But this is life for a club of our size at this level and we just have to deal with everything thrown at us and get on with things.

"We have a small squad and a small budget for the division, but we can’t use any of that as an excuse.

"As far as myself and Luke are concerned if the players give everything on the pitch they will get no stick from us.

"They did on Saturday. We had more ball and we created the better chances while looking comfortable at the back, but we didn’t score when on top and that can always come back to bite you.

"We made some poor decisions off the ball. For example there was a great cross from Jordan Nicholson which was begging for someone to score with a two-yard tap-in, but all our players were stuck on the edge of the area.

"We had to do a late rejig when Mark pulled out and we pushed Josh McCammon to play up top with Ben Fowkes. It’s not Josh’s best position, but he’s quick so we felt we could get in behind them.

"It worked to an extent as Josh just gets on with whatever job we give him, but we couldn’t find a goal.

"We then concede a late goal and then a second goal when we were caught pushing up chasing an equaliser.

"There are things we can work on, but we’ve done okay in the first four games. We’ve lost twice to late goals.”

Sports are the only side to have taken a point off leaders and title favourites Scunthorpe this season.