Shields still confident of promotion, insists captain after second straight league loss

Shields followed up last week’s 3-2 defeat at second-placed Ryhope with a 1-0 loss at fourth-placed Billingham Synthonia on Saturday.

They are now six points clear at the top, but just seven points seperate the top four.

Scroggins said: “This is a hard league to get out of, and everyone has said that.

“With the team and squad we’ve got, though, we should be stretching this gap.

“This was a perfect opportunity to do that, but that’s football and it happens.

“The teams in third and fourth are creeping up, but we’re still very confident.”

Shields were reduced to 10 men with seven minutes remaining and the score at 0-0 when Julio Arca was sent off for a last man foul.

Scroggins felt that situation arose because the Mariners were too open as they pushed for a winner.

He added: “Five minutes before his red card, Julio said ‘we need to tighten this up, because we’re getting a bit open pushing for this goal’, and he was right.

“They broke from our corner, which should never happen. We spoke afterwards in the changing room and he said he was thinking ‘shall I, shall I not?’, and by that time he had already taken him down.

“It was a red card, so we’ve just got to get on with it.

“After the red card, we thought that we could still get the win. We wanted to win, but we probably should have really settled for the point, which would have still been good with 10 men.”