Block 12 Backcheck

It's not easy this supporting malarkey.

Lose to Trafford, beat Whitley, lose to Solway, beat Coventry, lose to Billingam, beat Whitley and yes, you've guessed it, lose to Whitley.

Inconsistent, infuriating and, most definitely, under achieving.

In patches - recovering from 3-1 down to beat Coventry 9-3 - the Hawks have been excellent. At other times - collapsing at Billingham and conceding three goals in a minute at Whitley - it's been horrible.

Once again there's been the old chestnut, coming from within the camp, that certain players need "to take a long hard look in the mirror at themselves" , and it's clear there are issues which need addressing.

It's safe to say our coach - Jared Owen - has done a great job getting things moving in the right direction after the dark days of Neil Abel and Les Millie.

But something's still missing.

While acknowledging that ENL1 is amateur in status, there has to be some degree of professionalism when you're playing in front of decent sized crowds who are parting with their hard earned cash. When some of those punters are travelling fair distances to take in away games, then that professionalism should be more noticeable.

So the question which I guess should be posed by those "certain players" could well be - "should I be going out until all hours of the day before I'm due to play?" - especially when fitness during some games has clearly been a problem.

The lack of an out-and-out goalscorer - especially on the road - still hasn't been sorted. No doubt there's been work going on behind the scenes to address this, but accusations of a lack of support from the Arena still prevail. There's a handful of decent marksmen plying their trade in ENL2 - why haven't we been able to attract any of them?

On top of all that there's the problem of the lack of input from the bench on match days. I know from experience it's one of the hardest things in sport to play and manage at the same time - almost impossible.

When Solway came to the Arena they had Simon Leach on the bench organising proceedings and it doesn't half make a difference.

Owen has turned things around - but if the Hawks are to ever fulfil their obvious potential, there's still some way to go.