DAVE McNabb is calling on his Rylands players to “stand up and be counted” in games going forward.

Saturday saw them concede three times in a disastrous eight-minute spell against Charnock Richard as they fell to a 3-1 defeat.

Ste Wolhulter added a late consolation for Blues, who squandered several chances in a goalless first period.

Much of Charnock’s play centred around giant striker Carl Grimshaw, who scored the first of their three goals.

However, McNabb believes the qualities needed to stay in the hunt for a North West Counties League Premier Division promotion spot are not measured in physical size.

The Blues boss urged his side to show that when Padiham arrive at Gorsey Lane on Saturday, kick off 3pm.

“The squad that we had available today was capable of going and getting a result against Charnock despite them being a good side and without individual errors, we could well have picked up a point,” he said.

“I don’t want to do Charnock an injustice by saying they played route one today because they played some nice football, but when you have a striker like they do who’s a big strong lad and scores 30-40 goals a season, you’d be daft not to play to him.

“In football, strength isn’t about being 6”4 and 16 stone of muscle, it comes from your heart.

“To get that, you have to stand up and be counted in games like this and that’s what I’ll be looking for against Padiham and beyond.”

Blues were shorn of the services of several key men but were dominant in the first period, with a combination of poor finishing and good goalkeeping preventing them from scoring.

Four minutes into the second half, Grimshaw made them pay as he headed his side ahead following miscommunication between Rylands skipper Gary Kenny and goalkeeper Calum Spencer.

Another defensive mix-up presented Jordan Darr with the second goal before Lewis Haydock sprinted onto a through-ball to complete a horror show for Blues.

They did at least leave with a goal after Kane Drummond and Liam O’Neill combined to set up Wolhulte to score in the game's closing stages, but that was as good as it got for the visitors.

“It’s a tough place to come. Charnock are a good side, physically strong and technically very good,” McNabb said.

“Obviously they like to attack a lot but when you break it down, we’ve had a spell of eight minutes where we’ve conceded three goals through three individual errors.

“You can’t give teams as good as Charnock a 3-0 head start.

“When you concede three in 8 minutes, I’m looking for the stronger personalities to pick the team up at that point and ensure we don’t concede again so we can hit channels, play some percentages and start living in their box again and that didn’t happen.

“It took Charnock to take their foot off the gas for us to stop conceding.

“We had eight lads injured and that’s a reason why we’ve played two 19-year olds up front and to be fair, both of them have worked really hard and stuck to it.

“If we’re being critical, we could say both of them could have been more resilient and clinical but when you have ambitions to go deep in this league, you have to have that all over the pitch and I thought we had a lot of chances that we never took.”