Boss Paul Simpson revealed after the game on Saturday that defender Paul Huntington had been close to making the cut for the trip to Gillingham, with his abdominal injury well on the way to being resolved.
“He was quite close, but he wasn’t certain, so I made the decision that I wasn’t prepared to risk it,” he explained. “He was uncomfortable stretching it, and I knew against Hawkins he was going to have to stretch and head it, so we couldn’t take a chance.
“If we had he may have made it worse and put him out for longer. I would be very surprised if he’s not fit for next weekend, we just have to keep our fingers crossed that he is.
“In terms of the performance, who knows whether Hunts would have made a difference, the truth is we can’t say that because it was a poor team performance.
“Hunts wasn’t fit, so was no use to us, we’ve just got to see whether he’s fit for next week and whether he can come into the mix for that one.
“He’s got a tear in his abdominal muscle, he wanted to try it, so hetried some running on Thursday and Friday. He was still sore so we weren’t prepared to take the risk and make it even worse.
“We’ve got a week to address it, and get this disappointment out of our system and go to the league leaders and look to go and start ourself on another good run.”
“Jack Ellis played about 75 minutes in a youth team game to get some minutes under his belt, so that’s good for him,” he added.
“I haven’t heard how Fin Back’s gone, he’s played in a game with Forest today [Saturday], I’m expecting him to come back in with us next week. We’ll just wait and see how it all goes.”
