Bournville Head Coach Alex Grove admitted that the side faced a tough task trying to take any points off Luctonians at Mortimer Park with a severely-depleted team.
Bourns travelled to Herefordshire without 12 first choice players and although those who were called up to fill the gaps played with plenty of passion and commitment they were outgunned by a well-drilled Luctonians side.
Grove was one of those drafted in for his seasonal debut and his hard carrying and hard tackling display impressed Luctonians who made him Bourns’ Man of the Match.
But Grove will hope that this appearance will also be his last with some of those who were absent at Mortimer Park likely to be in contention when Bourns resume their National Two West campaign against Loughborough Students at Avery Fields on October 31.
“Luctonians are a very good side, they are well coached, they know what they do well,” Grove said.
“They have a strong set piece, they come off the line in defence – they are quite aggressive in defence – they drive well and they manage field position particularly well and they don’t really deviate from that.
“Today they didn’t need to deviate from that. We had to try and break the game up and in breaking the game up you run the risk of making mistakes. When you make mistakes against good sides you get punished and I think we got punished every time today.
“This is the seventh game of seven on the bounce and we don’t have a squad to go seven games on the bounce in the National Leagues.
“We had 12 first team players unavailable through injury or unavailability today. We had a lot new faces and new combinations and it was a massive ask coming here and trying to get points.
“We now have a week off which we need. There are a few guys coming back from injury in the next seven days who will be back for the next round of games. We have four games in the next block then a weekend off and three games before Christmas.
“So, It makes the run in to Christmas slightly easier to manage than the start to the season.
“But we knew at the end of last season that this season was going to be really hard. The reality is that these away days at very good, seasoned National League sides are a massive ask for us.”
