The Paul Mullin column

THE Lancashire lads reigned supreme at ten-pin bowling this week.

I have to admit I was only a spectator because it's not really my game, but myself and Ged Brannan had fun on the sidelines watching the action unfold.

There was a bit of healthy competition between the Scousers and the local lads.

Paul Carvill became an honorary Lancastrian for the afternoon and played an absolute blinder. He really is a dark horse!

Peter Cavanagh was superb and Ian Craney showed good form for the Scousers, but Jonathan Smith, Steve Flitcroft and Paul Howarth came good in the end for the locals.

Our get-together was a really good chance to get the team spirit back on track after the disappointment of losing so heavily on Saturday.

Training was really flat on Monday, especially after we sat down to watch the video of the Scarborough game.

They're not a better side than us by any means.

Everything just seemed to be against us that afternoon, and when it was 3-0 we knew it wasn't going to be our day.

Sometimes it's easy to just pray for the referee to blow his final whistle, but you've got to dig in and try to get a goal. I think if we'd have done that it would have changed the game, but despite goodness knows how many goalmouth scrambles, it wasn't to be.

It was difficult to get the smiles back on everyone's faces on Monday, so going bowling was a good chance to have a break, and hopefully it's done the trick because we have to focus on winning on Saturday.

With the defeat at Scarborough we've put a lot of pressure on ourselves to win this weekend a) to get us back on track and b) financially for the club.

The FA Cup run we had last season should be a big enough carrot to dangle for the lads because it was superb, especially when you've played non-league for most of your career.

Last year was special, and it would be great if we could repeat that.