CHIPPENHAM winger Scott Walker has called on his team-mates to pick themselves up and get back to winning ways against Dover this weekend.
The 26-year-old, who was named the sponsor's man of the match against Crawley on Saturday, said spirits had been low in the dressing room following the 1-0 defeat.
"We were obviously bitterly disappointed. I felt we matched them and took the game right to the very wire," he said.
"I would say overall in the 90 minutes we had a larger percentage of the possession so we are disappointed in the changing room at the end of the game. Crawley had the size all over the pitch but they are not too bad on the ball as well. Obviously they wouldn't be top of the league if they weren't a good side.
"So for us to come out of the game having played as well as we did but still lost we are all really down."
But Walker urged his teammates to stand up and be counted this weekend when Dover Athletic are the visitors to Hardenhuish Park. "We have got to pick ourselves up this week for next weekend and see what we can do against Dover," he said.
The winger was pleased that he had the opportunity to test the Crawley defence with a succession of set-pieces but was disappointed that there was no end product.
"Personally I had quite a bit of the ball. A lot of it was set-plays and I enjoy all that. The more I get the ball the more I enjoy the game," he added.
"It was just a shame we couldn't create anything and get the ball in the back of the net. The pitch was quite difficult to get the quality of the free-kicks and corners in but we made the most of it and were unlucky. Tom had a header from one free-kick which unfortunately went straight at the keeper. On another day that would have gone in."
With only a few minutes left on the clock Walker sent a spectacular volley just wide and admitted for a second he thought he was going to bag the equaliser.
"I had the volley on my left foot at the end which wasn't too far off target," he said. "I just watched it coming down and knew I made a good connection. I thought it was going on target but it went just wide and I was a bit gutted. We'll never know whether the keeper would have got it if it had been on target."
Now Walker is looking forward to taking on Dover and hopes Chippenham can get their promotion push back on track.
"The last time we played Dover we drew 0-0 when they missed a couple of penalties," he added. "We showed there that we can match them and it's a little bit different now because our squad is a lot fitter. We've been on a good run before the Crawley game so hopefully the confidence is still there."
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