IT seems it's been a week for not being at the races. Jockey Roger Loughran certainly wasn't, and neither were we at Halifax on Boxing Day.

Loughran made the mistake of thinking he had beaten Moscow Flyer, among others, to win the Paddy Power Dial-A-Bet Chase at Leopardstown on Central House, but found to his horror that he was about 100 yards short and was overtaken twice before crossing the finishing post.

If we're not careful, we could be in danger of getting a blas attitude about games that we think we should be winning but instead getting egg on our faces.

We can't go into games just expecting to win. We have to perform as well.

Maybe it's not a bad thing that we had the festive performance that we did. Three or four players weren't on their game.

One or two you can perhaps get away with, but if you stretch beyond that then you make life extremely difficult for yourself and we were very flat at times.

Our defending for the first goal was atrocious - and in the 47th minute of the first half it was a massive body blow. Had Paul Mullin not missed the chance to make it 2-0 at a time when we were dominating, Halifax would probably have found it difficult to come back from that.

But the feedback off the players at half-time was a 'roll our sleeves up' attitude.

Our performance in the second half failed to match that sentiment. In a nutshell, it was not acceptable.

However, we showed we've got a bit of character by persevering and grabbing a late point.

So perhaps our shock at the Shay is the wake-up call the lads needed to kick them on for the next few games.

It's particularly important that we rediscover our winning formula at Southport tomorrow night, not least because some of the top teams are playing each other so it's a chance for us to widen the gap.

There are some big games this weekend, so we have to go to Southport and do a professional job and - all things being right - we will come away with three points.

The return game against Halifax will, once again be tough. If Rory Prendergast has another month with the Shaymen, and features, he will perhaps regret his reaction to their first goal on Monday.

They are just spur of the moment things and I don't think for a second there was any malice in what he did.

He just wanted to do well against his former club and I think it was just a case of over-enthusiasm.

Hopefully our flair players who went missing will be more on the ball tomorrow and Monday. It will be mine, John and Cooky's responsibility to get them physically and mentally prepared for the last game of 2005 and first of 2006.

And on that note, can I wish all Stanley supporters and Evening Telegraph readers a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.