St Ives beat Deeping Rangers 6-0 in the United counties League while Huntington Town react positively to manager Ricky Marheineke’s rallying call.

United Counties League Division One

ON Chenecks 0 Huntingdon Town 5

HUNTINGDON Town responded to manager Ricky Marheineke’s midweek roasting by beating ON Chenecks 5-0 in Northampton on Saturday.

Following their Tuesday night 2-1 home defeat to Wotton Blue Cross, the furious manager said he was “absolutely gutted, angry and frustrated” and questioned some of his players attitude.

He said: “Certain players let me down ... let the team down. It’s almost as if certain players don’t care about this football club – as if they don’t care whether we win, lose or draw.”

But on Saturday Declan Rogers, Jamie Blackwell, Dan Drane and Ondre Odain were all on target as the Croms made light work of their United Counties League Division One opponents.

“I had a few words with some of the players at training on Thursday,” said Marheineke. “We thrashed a few things out and there was a much better atmosphere in the changing room on Saturday - the team spirit was much better.”

“The players gave me the right reaction.”

Rogers struck first, opening the scoring in the 32nd minute - but it was during a six-minute spell early in the second half that the Croms did the most damage. On 52 minutes Drane scored his ?? goals of the season, before Blackwell got their third on 55 minutes and Odain on 58.

Rogers got his second and Huntingdon’s sixth in the final minute of the game.

The five-goal win obviously pleased Marheineke, but he was even more chuffed about the clean sheet.

“We went back to basics,” he said. “The defence responded well and kept their concentration for 90 minutes. We cut out all the mistakes we have been making. We might have been scoring goals but if you are letting in two every game - if makes it harder to win games.”

Yet, Marheineke knows that there will be tougher games to come; the team hasn’t faced a team from the top five - and on Saturday Raunds Town will be at Jubilee Park - they are 15th out of 17 in the table.

The manager said: “We have already lost two of our six league games. You can’t lose more than six games in this division and still hope to be promoted so we now have to win 26 of our remaining games.”