Rooks boss: We'll stay up (From The Argus)

Rooks boss: We'll stay up

8:30am Saturday 9th March 2013 in Sport By Howard Griggs

Simon Wormull has told Lewes fans: “We are not going down.”

A run of five straight defeats has seen the Rooks slip alarmingly close to the Ryman premier relegation zone.

The fact that only two teams will go down this season – as the division expands to 24 clubs – helps their predicament.

But fourth-bottom Lewes still have plenty of work to do to get out of trouble. They are only three points above Hastings, who have three games in hand, and five ahead of Thurrock, who have six matches to make up.

It has been a testing season for Lewes and Wormull, whose budget was cut last summer as the club achieved their long-held goal of becoming self-sufficient.

As a result, Wormull has operated with a smaller squad boosted by players from the club’s highly-regarded youth system including the Fergany brothers – Ryan and James – who are currently in the England Schoolboys under-18s squad.

A succession of injuries to key players has forced Wormull to play more youngsters than he had intended to and there were nine players under the age of 21 in the starting line-up as Lewes lost 2-1 at Enfield Town last Saturday.

But with some key players on their way back, Wormull is confident the Rooks will get out of trouble.

He said: “I’m still not looking at the season in terms of we could be relegated.

“We have still got to play Cray, Carshalton (who are bottom) and Hastings so it is in our own hands.

“If you look at our last five games against Bognor, Hendon, Leiston, Harrow and Bury Town, none of them will be in the play-offs and neither will they be in a dogfight down the bottom. In a way they will be dead games for those sides and that will suit us."