King’s Lynn Town’s focus will not waver and manager Mark Hughes believes his players have momentum on their side heading into the National League North play-offs.
Seven successive wins at the end of the season weren’t quite enough to get Lynn over the automatic promotion line as AFC Fylde claimed the title on the final day of a pulsating campaign.
Lynn will entertain either Alfreton Town or Kidderminster Harriers in the play-off semi-finals at the Walks next Sunday (3.30pm) and, if they progress from there, will then host the final – live on BT Sport -a week later (May 13).
It is a tall order, but Lynn are in a good place right now and their boss is determined to get the job done and secure promotion as the return of key players from injury boost his options ahead of next weekend.
Hughes said: “From maybe a supporters point of view, you may think we’ve missed out, but not from this group.
“I mean, Skip (Michael Clunan) led the circle after and said: ‘let’s go, we’ve got two more at the walks and we don’t get beat here’.
“The pleasing thing for me is the two boys that come back on the pitch, you know, they were regular starters earlier.
“We’re getting stronger as a squad with Dents (Tyler Denton) and Cameron Hargreaves coming back, so that gives everybody a lift because they have enthusiasm and then want to go for another two weeks.
“They don’t want to stop now. So yeah, I’ve got a headache for next for next week, but we’ll enjoy tonight cause we’ve got these supporters and then we’ll go again on Tuesday.”
The Linnets upheld their end of the deal by beating the Nash – but AFC Fylde’s 2-0 victory dashed the club’s hopes of going up automatically.
Hughes felt visiting Curzon Ashton gave his side more problems than any other side since he stepped into the managerial role on an interim basis.
“Look, as a coaching staff, we had to just focus on us and we’ve done that yet again and I think that was our toughest game since I’ve been in charge,” he said.
“They really had a go at us in the first half. They didn’t let us play out, but then on the flip side, this is why Goldie (Gold Omotayo) was so important to us because he was relieving the pressure when they were getting in.
“The goal we scored was great, going in at half-time 1-0 up because they had a really good spell of 10 to 15 minutes and we were really happy with that.
“I thought second-half we did turn it, upped the gears a little bit and thought our wide players come into the game, especially when Dents came on and Oxlade Chamberlain over the far side.
“We scored a terrific second goal from Josh Barrett. So yeah, we we’ve done our best and look it’s it’s it’s another week to look forward to.”
