Matt Jones believes the mid-season break has come at a good time for his stuttering East Grinstead side.

A 2-1 defeat away to second from bottom Brooklands capped what has been a hugely frustrating first half of the season for the reigning champions.

They have now failed to win their last four games, drawing three on the trot before Sunday's defeat, and go into the winter break ten points behind leaders Surbiton in third place.

An unsettled side, due to injuries and unavailability, has been the curse of the season so far which was highlighted in Manchester when they were missing Adam Harper, Gareth Carr and Glenn Kirkham in addition to long-term injury victims Ben Payne and Jack Marfleet.

The problems were exacerbated by Danny Hall picking up the first red card of a distinguished career.

Manager Matt Jones said: “The break has come at a good time. There are some key players to us whose lack of availability has affected us over the last few weeks.

“The break gives us an opportunity to recharge our batteries, for those not involved in the indoor series, and start 2010 with a full and fit squad knowing clearly what we have to do to achieve what we want to achieve.

“We will be a lot more settled for the second half and the likelihood is the only player we won’t have is Glenn Kirkham (due to England duties). We should have everybody back including Jack Marfleet and Ben Payne.

“We are still third in the table and that is a blessing. From here on it is a question of making sure we pick up as many points as we can to put ourselves in a strong position for the play-offs and reaching our overall objective which is re-qualification for Europe.

“We have dropped nine points out of 12 but we are bigger than that and we won’t let it affect us.”

Grinstead were in total control away to Brooklands until the dismissal of Hall three minutes before half-time for what the umpires deemed to be swinging an arm in retaliation.

Despite being a man down and even being reduced to nine players at one stage when Scott Ashdown was yellow carded, Grinstead continued to take the game to their hosts, creating a stack of chances.

However, Brooklands scored twice on the break and Niall Stott’s late reply from open play proved to be no more than a consolation.

The hosts also had a player red carded as Aiden Khares was dismissed two minutes from time.

Jones said: “The umpires said Danny Hall was sent off for a retaliatory movement in his arm. It may have looked bad but it wasn’t how the umpires saw it. He is a whiter than white player and Danny doesn’t do those sort of things.

“Let’s put this result into perspective. They had four shots in the entire game, we had 12 short corners and 20 opportunities from open play. Those are the stats but I supposed it is only coaches that look at stats. You have to put your opportunities away.”

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