Knaresborough Town's inconsistency down to their inability to field a settled side

The Manse Lane outfit’s up-and-down season continued on Saturday as they followed up their 4-0 demolition of Hemsworth Miners Welfare with a 4-2 home defeat to Goole.

That result means that Boro have now won two, drawn two and lost two of their last six matches and remain stuck in the lower reaches of the NCEL Premier Division.

“I just can’t seem to get all of my players available at the same time,” Hunter said.

“We’ve had the worst time with injuries I’ve ever known since I’ve been involved with football, but even at the start of the season and more recently when a lot of those lads have been fit, I’ve still had a few unavailable for selection every week.

“It’s frustrating from my point of view. I honestly can’t recall being able to select the same team in back-to-back fixtures.

“I think we proved that when we have close to a full-strength team available we are a really good side at this level. We showed that in the first few weeks when we started off by winning four in a row.

“There have been some really strong performances in recent weeks, but until we have some consistency in terms of player availability I think that getting ourselves up the table is going to be tricky.”

Boro headed into Saturday’s clash with mid-table rivals Goole full of confidence following their comprehensive win over Hemsworth seven days earlier however a nightmare first half-an-hour saw them slip three goals behind to strikes from Samuel Cable (2) and Luke Williams.

Hunter’s made a much better fist of it after the break and went close to pulling one back when Tom Dugdales effort was pushed on to the cross-bar by the visiting goalkeeper.

Craig Ramplin did however manage to reduce the deficit on 59 minutes, firing home a rebound after Dom Creamer’s initial strike was saved.

Boro then struck again soon afterwards, Sean Hunter turning in Brad Walker’s cross to reduce the deficit to one.

But with the hosts pushing hard for a leveller, Goole broke away and Cable completed his hat-trick, making the game safe in the process.

Next up for Town is a trip to Silsden on December 28, 3pm kick-off.