Assistant manager Larry Chambers today rallied his troops after an agonising defeat to league leaders Droylsden, insisting: “We won’t be far away playing like that.”

The Bucks went down 2-1 on Saturday, the Bloods scoring their winner with a free-kick in the fourth minute of injury time that went through the legs of keeper Ryan Young.

It means Telford are now eight points adrift of top spot, languishing in 10th place and with a negative goal difference.

But Chambers saw enough from an encouraging display to make him believe they could soon be heading in the right direction.

“We will look at the positives and build the lads up this week, because it was a massive improvement,” he said.

“I thought the fans were superb – you lose 2-1 at home and get clapped off.

“To me, that indicates they were happy with what they have been served up.

“I’d rather people say we were boring, that we don’t play a lot of football and we win games, because we’re in a results business.

“But if we play like that for the remainder of the season, we won’t be far away even if we are playing catch-up at the moment.”

Chambers also gave support to goalkeeper Young, despite his error that proved so crushing for his side on Saturday.

Young has been a virtual ever-present since signing in the summer of 2007, and has now racked up 120 consecutive appearances.

“It is harsh on Ryan because he’s been superb for the last couple of years,” added Chambers

“But it was a bad error and it’s cost us. Ryan will be the first to admit it was a bread-and-butter

goalkeeping job.

“It was a big game against the top of the table side, so it’s very frustrating – we’ve played worse than that this season and got the three points.”

By CHRIS HUDSON