SWINDON Supermarine manager Lee Spalding has told his players that they will have to start putting their bodies on the line if they want to pick up the points necessary to stay in Southern League Premier Division South, writes JONATHAN LEIGHFIELD.

Spalding’s comments followed a 2-1 defeat at home to Harrow Borough, a game in which Marine led in thanks to a Matt Williams header before Borough stormed back to claim all three points.

Marine hang perilously close to the relegation zone after a fifth league game without a win and Spalding says his side have to sharpen up at both ends of the pitch if they want to remain in the division.

Spalding said: “Defensively, it’s not really good enough, to be honest.

“We went 1-0 up but then the first goal we’ve conceded, Will Henry has made two great saves and we haven’t backed that up by clearing our lines afterwards, so that was really disappointing.

“For the second one, again, it’s really disappointing that their lad has had a free header at our back post.

“We need to be a lot stronger and we need to put our bodies on the line.

“I’ve already said to the players that if we’re going to get results at this level, we can’t give teams easy goals like we did today."

Despite the result, Spalding did see some positives to take from the game and knows there is plenty his side can build on going forward, so long as they can do it for 90 minutes.

“I thought we started really brightly. The first 20 minutes was outstanding. It was one of the best starts of the season," said Spalding.

“In the first 25 minutes, I thought we exploited their weaknesses really well. We knew they were good going forward and they had a lot of quality but the last 20 minutes of the first half, they caused us a lot of problems with their quality on the ball.

“In the second half, we changed formation, the boys battled hard and put a really good performance in where we created three of four really good opportunities but it’s the story of our season so far.

“We’ve created three or four good opportunities in each half and we just didn’t take them and we gave away two sloppy goals and it’s cost us the game.

“We need to be more clinical at both ends of the pitch and I’ve said to the boys today, going forward we need to put that right."