MANAGER Adam Flint is confident that he won't have to pick his Witham Town players up after the disappointing ending to their Ryman League division north game against Thurrock.

Witham are due to host AFC Hornchurch at the Village Glass Stadium tomorrow (kick-off 3pm) when they will hope to reproduce the form they showed between minutes one and 88 against Thurrock rather than in the final two.

Heading into the 89th minute, Flint's team had been leading 2-0 thanks to goals from Usman Adeniji and Tim Monsheju against a Thurrock side who sat second in the division and had won their previous six games.

It was set to be another precious three points against another promotion contender following Witham's 5-1 win at Bowers and Pitsea in the game before, but the visitors struck with goals in the 89th and 90th minutes to snatch a draw.

Flint said the ending had been a bitter blow to his players, but he is confident that their collective youth means they won't dwell on it when they face the Urchins on Saturday.

He said: "It really hurt the players and you could see that in the dressing room afterwards.

"But I don't mind that and I want them to feel that way as it felt like we'd been beaten.

"Thurrock were celebrating like they'd won the league as they knew they'd got away with it.

"They know that we are a good team now, though and there are positives to take as we played really well.

"I wasn't surprised that we dominated like we did as I had watched them and, like it was against Bowers, we are all wrong for them with the way that we go forward.

"They had the best defensive record in the league, but I'd seen them and knew we could trouble them so I wasn't surprised that we were two-nil up.

"But we now have to go again against Hornchurch on Saturday.

"I don't think it will affect the players, though.

"They don't fear anything and they are good at forgetting about something like this.

"I suppose that's because they are all young and maybe don't think about it too much.

"We won't be having to pick them up or anything like that, but it's still a shame that we didn't win."

It isn't the first time this season that Witham have seen points disappear as they have conceded late goals, but Flint said it wasn't a problem that was easy to diagnose.

He added: "I can't put my finger on why it is as it's not down to one thing or one person.

"I don't think we switched off; we just didn't cope with it.

"I suppose it was the same but the other way round when we played Maldon at our place as they had been the better team throughout and we got the late goal to take a point.

"It's always hard to take when a game ends like that and you are on the wrong end of it, but it does show the progress that we've made this year as we wouldn't have played that way earlier in the season.

"Mark Stimson (the Thurrock manager) won the Manager-of-the-Month award for December and their keeper got a clean sheets award, but we caused them real problems."

Flint said he hoped to have Ryan Charles back for the visit of Hornchurch on Saturday after the winger was unavailable last weekend and to have Luke Mallett and Max Bradford back from illnesses, but Kofi Gyebi is still out with a groin problem.