Runners-up spot still Preece's main target

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Published: Monday, 20 January 2014 11:16

WINGMAKERS' director of football Andy Preece insists that clinching the runners-up spot remains the main target despite holding Welsh Premier leaders The New Saints to a 1-1 draw on their own patch.

The draw means Airbus remain five points behind the Saints but with a game in hand, although Preece was quick to point out the 12-point gap to third-placed Carmarthen as he looks to lead his side into the Europa League for a second successive year.

"It gets us another point towards second place, that’s the key," explained Preece to The Leader. 

"It doesn’t matter who we take the points off, we just need enough to get there.

"We’ve just got to keep going, we’ve only got 11 games left and every point we get now is help towards that target.

"If we get to the last four or five games and we are still in this position then we’ve got to say ‘lets have a go for it, lets try and keep ourselves in it’.

"If we keep ourselves in it then obviously we will sew second place up."

Alex Darlington gave TNS a third-minute lead but a goal from Chris Budrys eight minutes from time secured the draw.

"If we could just take the first five minutes out of the game it went exactly how we thought it would go," Preece reflected.

"The goal was really disappointing. You need to stay with the full-backs, you need to stay with the runners and we didn’t do that.

"It took us a while to get into it, but once we started keeping the ball, rather than giving it them back, we started causing problems.

"How many saves has their ‘keeper pulled off? We kept going right until the end and I don’t think anybody could deny us a point at the end."