GARY Hackett pulled no punches this week when he admitted some Stourbridge performances this season hadn’t been up to scratch.

Following in the wake of a 2-0 beating at Bedford Town, which was compounded further by a 1-0 home defeat to Chippenham, Hackett said: “It’s been a bad week. We’ve not started the season as well as I would have liked and we’re under-performing at the moment.

“Whether it’s a hangover from last season, I don’t know, but we have to knuckle down and work harder.

“There’s a great deal of expectation on us this season and no-one is more disappointed than myself when we don’t play well. It hurts us as a team.

“However, there’s no great panic. We’re only six games into the season and we’ve proved people wrong before!

Hackett also responded to supporters criticism of striker Ryan Rowe, who has failed to hit the ground running since his return to Amblecote from Kidderminster Harriers.

He confessed: “Ryan is well below where he should be in terms of fitness levels and he’s not given us the spark we had hoped for.

“Apart from half a game against Redditch, Ryan has been a shadow of his former self. But we know that Ryan is a class-act and he simply has to get his head down and work hard”.

Hackett hopes to turn the corner this Saturday when Stourbridge host Burnham in aSoutern League Premier fixture but may have to rule out Ben Billingham, who hobbled off from the Chippenham game on crutches.

The Glassboys boss revealed: “Ben took a kick on his achilles and it doesn’t look good. “He’s had a lot of niggling injuries and hasn’t really been able to get started for us this season and we’ve missed that, because he’s a class act.

Hackett is also waiting to see whether defenders Henry Eze and Andre Francis recover from injury in time, if not Will Richards, who arrived at Amblecote as a striker, will continue in central defence.