Published: Friday, 11th December, 2009 11:31am

White after show of character from Finch

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NEIL White has urged his Finchampstead side to show their character as they prepare for their derby clash with table-topping Wokingham & Emmbrook.

Finch crashed out of a cup competition for the third straight weekend after slumping to a shock 4-2 defeat at Old Challoners last Saturday in the third round of the Berks & Bucks Intermediate Cup.

And White admits that another 'abysmal' display means they go into the clash with their local rivals at their lowest ebb of the campaign.

But he said: "You would like to think that the prospect of a derby game might be just what the guys need after the last few weeks.

"But saying that, Wokingham & Emmbrook are by far the best team in the league so maybe we could have done with playing a team around us in the table.

"However, we will rally the troops and ask them to show a bit of character and desire. We will certainly be doing our best to turn things around."

Last weekend's clash with Amateur Football Combination side Challoners never promised to be smooth sailing, after the hosts changed venues at the last minute.

That left Finch to cope with a poor pitch and facilities well below Hellenic League standard, but they would still have been expected to be the team to move into the last 16 of the competition.

Challoners had already gone close on two occasions, when Finch - already without the key injured trio of Pat Selby, Luke Axton-Hall and Rob Yorke-Goldney - also saw Steve Selby forced off with a back problem.

However, they quickly recovered from that setback to move in front, as Kevin Prentice's 15th minute free-kick from just inside the Challoners half evaded everyone to sneak into the net.

The visitors continued to press, with Ben Knight and Bobby Hogg both going close, but they went into the interval with just a single goal advantage.

A hectic second half saw James Foster level things for Challoners 10 minutes in, only for Dean Thomas to re-establish the Finch lead five minutes later.

However, he was also forced off with back pain sustained in the process of scoring, and within two minutes Foster had levelled things again with a close range header.

Within minutes Dave Croucher had struck again for Challoners to give them the lead for the first time, and a Paul Thomas effort sealed their progress to the fourth round.

And it left White bemoaning an afternoon that started badly and got worse from there.

He said: "It was pretty abysmal all round. They changed venues at the last minute and we ended up playing on a very poor pitch that really didn't suit our game at all.

"But they showed far more desire and it was a fair result in the end. You can analyse the game all you want, but the performance was not good enough.

"And we also picked up a few injuries that is far from ideal when we have got to entertain the league leaders this weekend.

"But we have got to pick ourselves up because going out of three cup competitions in the space of three weekends is poor by anyone's standards."