WHERE you’re looking for a good roll of the ball or a lucky break to try and eventually take a game by the scruff of the neck, watching a tame shot from distance end up in the net via a goalkeeping error is the last thing you want to see.

With all the pre-game talk being about making a quick start and taking advantage of the woeful form of Hereford, once again, the expectations of the fans and Tommy Wright were not reconcilable with events on the pitch.

What is becoming more predictable is just how unpredictable this Darlo side are. Turning up to a game with any sort of pre-conceived idea of what we might see has become a waste of time. Instead, you just have to strap yourself in and see where the rollercoaster takes you.

Likening Darlo games to a rollercoaster would suggest there’s ups and downs and thrills galore, but that is probably stretching it a bit, certainly when it comes to playing at Blackwell Meadows. Since the thrilling performance against Telford, entertainment at Blackwell has been sparingly rationed so it’s a small mercy that we actually scored two goals in a single game.

I think most of us turning up would have had some expectation that we could at the very least score a couple of goals against a poor side. Less expected was a Hereford side with stinking league form to score two for the first time since of the opening fortnight of the season.

Arguably, Hereford are the worst side we’ve seen for a while at our place. I would suggest that in our two and a bit years in this league, only North Ferriby have been worse. Back in the spring, when everything was a lot more positive and we were looking forward to on-pitch progression, we put that Ferriby side to the sword. Unfortunately Hereford were not disposed of in a similar manner.

Instead, we laboured for most of the afternoon moving the ball around slowly and not really shifting a sluggish looking Hereford back line. Too often, the safe sideways or backwards pass was opted for rather than something more decisive. We made life pretty easy for a limited opposition.

Whilst we had plenty of possession throughout, it was only when the visitors began to tire around the hour mark - something you don’t normally see at this level of football - that we started to properly turn the screw and made our additional quality and fitness count. But for some incredibly lax finishing, we really should have won the game however failing to take chances is the hallmark of a side in our position.

As annoying as conceding two goals to a rank poor side is, as critical as you could be about the level of performance for the majority of the game, I actually came away from the game feeling a bit sorry for our players. You can see several of them are running empty when it comes to confidence.

Throughout the first half, you got the impression the player in possession didn’t want to be the guy who gave the ball away for fear of the moans and groans of the Tin Shed. It wasn’t a football, it was a hot potato and it was easier to give it to someone else rather than trying something different.

Despite our season having gone off the boil, I still believe we have some good players at our disposal but there is something just not clicking and while it is obvious to us fans, it looks like the players are all too aware of it as well.

So, let’s just remind ourselves that we have only lost one in the last nine. That’s decent for mid-table outfit. We have only lost five league games in total. That’s better than most teams in and around us in the league. With a bit more focus, a bit more belief and a bit more organisation, we can make a bit more of this season. We just need a bit more.