Dulwich Hamlet boss Gavin Rose: Only one play-off spot still up for grabs
Dulwich Hamlet head into tomorrow’s home game against Oxford City with manager Gavin Rose conceding that only one play-off place still looks up for grabs.
The South Londoners are eighth, a point behind Hungerford, with six matches remaining in National League South.
Only one team goes up automatically with the next six in the knockout competition.
“Results are very unpredictable but Eastbourne [in fourth] have had a fantastic run, winning six games in a row, and that has taken them out of sight,” said Rose. “No-one else has had a run like that, apart from the top two.
“We’d looked at the top seven four or five weeks ago and we felt that [seventh] was all that was up for grabs. We’ve hit really bad form at the wrong time. It is the most inconsistent we have been all season.
“We’re six games without a win – we’ve had a few draws in that but we’d not had a run like that before this. When you are trying to get to the play-offs then this is the time you want to start motoring on.
“We need to get points on the board, just for our form. It’s obviously more important that we’re playing a play-off team, Oxford are a very good team. It gets us a bit closer to them if we can get the three points. They’ll be looking to put more distance between us and them.
“It doesn’t really matter about the opposition at this stage because every game is vital to us.
“You have moments when you’re in good form and there isn’t anything overly brilliant about what we were doing then to what we’re doing now. There is probably a bit more pressure applied, because everyone knows what we’re playing for. Some people deal with that better than others.
“But out of those six matches there is only one game you’d say we shouldn’t have got anything out of – and that was Maidstone. We never really gave a good account of ourselves in that one.
“It’s not one of them where you’re thinking ‘we’re not in the game at all’. We should have taken maximum points in most of those games.”
PICTURE: ROB AVIS