South Shields need to be more prolific to end poor form - Briggs

Robert Briggs bemoaned a lack of clinical edge as South Shields fell to a third defeat in their last four National League North games at Southport.

The Mariners went into the game looking to bounce back from a desperately disappointing result and performance at Needham Market last weekend as they visited a Sandgrounders side sat below them in the table prior to the game. Despite enjoying some positive moments and hitting the crossbar with an effort from Martin Smith during the opening quarter of an hour, Elliott Dickman’s men found themselves a goal down at half-time as Tom Moore struck a fine half volley just after the midway point of the half.

Experienced forward Danny Lloyd doubled the tally eight minutes into the second-half and any thoughts of a comeback were brought to an end when Marcus Carver beat Mariners goalkeeper Kyle Seymour to stretch the lead to three with quarter of an hour remaining. Mariners captain Briggs delivered an open and honest assessment of his side’s performance and stressed there has to be improvements at either end of the pitch if they are to end a poor run of form.

He told the club website: “We are really disappointed to be honest, the lads are gutted in there. The reason being we played some really good stuff, some good football and we had some really good patterns of play. But we can’t afford to defend like that and we can’t afford to not create many chances. Credit to Southport, they’ve sat in their shape, they’ve waited and they’ve broken to score the goals so fair play to them. We are really struggling in and around the final third, we get there really well and that’s where it breaks down. Smudge (Martin Smith) had a great strike in the first-half that’s hit the crossbar and if that goes in it might be a different game. But we’ve got to make those spells of possession, the spells of attacking threat, make them count and score goals because if we don’t score goals we have zero chance of winning games.”

The Mariners are back on home soil for the first time in a month on Saturday when they welcome Leamington to the 1st Cloud Arena.