Amidst the doom of gloom of Saturday's 4-2 defeat at Maidstone United there was one positive note for Chester FC .
After a season of injury woe that prior to Saturday had seen him play just nine minutes of football after a calf injury, Ross Killock came through 45 minutes unscathed.
Killock, 22, came on at the break with Chester trailing 4-0 and slotted in at left-back in an attempt to steady the ship.
And while his attempts at a comeback at Macclesfield Town in October lasted less than 10 minutes after he was forced off after stretching for a loose ball, the weekend saw Killock get through a half and put himself into contention for a starting role at Southport this weekend.
"It was good to get on and left back was a bit unfamiliar for me, but it was great to be back out there but it was bittersweet," said Killock, who came through 90 minutes in two reserve games in the past fortnight.
"The legs are fine. I've been back in training for five or six weeks now and had a couple of reserve games, although they are not as high a tempo as that. It was great to get through that 45 mentally as well as physically.
"I've had a good chunk of football in the past couple of weeks and hopefully the gaffer has seen enough to consider me from the start."
The defender, who signed from Championship side Leeds United in the summer, revealed that Blues boss Jon McCarthy was less than impressed with what he saw in a calamitous first half at the Gallagher Stadium and stressed the need to get back to winning ways as soon as possible in the Vanarama National League.
He said: "The gaffer came in and told us what he thought. It was unacceptable. Fans have travelled all that way down and it was unlike us. We've had a bad few weeks. We gave it a go in the second half but it was too little, too late.
"We know we can't play like that again. The first two games at Dover and Dagenham we were unfortunate but the last two haven't been good enough. We need to pick up some results."
