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All three players missed the trip to Harrison Park in midweek where Gresley were extremely unlucky not to have got a least a share of the points against promotion rivals Leek Town.

After dominating large parts of the game they were beaten by a somewhat fortuitous early goal and denied a very clear-cut penalty shout when Karl Ashton was manhandled in the area at a corner and a couple of good chances that went begging right at the end of the game meant Gresley returned home empty handed.

The result dropped the Gresley to fifth in the table, with Spalding leapfrogging them due to slightly better goal difference.

Thornhill said Gresley paid the ultimate price for their early defending, with his backline missing the usual stability afforded by the injured Jamie Barrett and the unavailable Mitch Hanson.

"It was a particularly difficult game, as we expected," said Thornhill. "Leek are doing exceptionally well. They're a very good team and are in the position they are for a reason.

"You can't afford to go to a place like Leek and defend how we did for the first 5-10 minutes. It only took them a couple of minutes to get on the scoresheet which was disappointing. It was a bit of a silly goal for us to concede, very poor. But when you've got a goal like that as early as it came, you've still got 80-plus minutes to get something back and we really started to have a good go at them."