Linnets boss Lakeland on Ross Crane ahead of Radcliffe trip

Crane was absent for Bank Holiday Monday’s home defeat to Peterborough Sports, but manager Adam Lakeland is hopeful he will recover from a tight hamstring for the trip to Radcliffe.

It was an injury the Lynn boss was reluctant to gamble with, two days after the 22-year-old had to come off 68 minutes into the 1-0 win at Marine.

“He felt his hamstring tighten up on Saturday and he made us aware of it at half-time,” said Lakeland after Monday’s defeat. “He carried on, but if we’d have left him out there, you risk him being out for two to six weeks, so we had to see how it settled down.”

The long trip back from Marine didn’t help matters, two days before a holiday game.

“When you get a tight hamstring, you don’t want to sit on a coach for six hours and then be expected to play at three o’clock on the Monday, so we planned that he wasn’t going to be right to start the (Monday) game.

“It was a question of whether he would be able to come on later in the game and impact it, but the player himself said that he didn’t really have much confidence in it and I think you’ve got to listen to players. They know their bodies and with how explosive he is, I think in the latter stages if we had that option of him off the bench, I think he would have come on and caused damage.

“But for the sake of bringing him on for 15 minutes when he tells me he’s not (ready), with the flip side being that we could lose him for half a dozen games, it’s just nonsensical to use him.

“Hopefully Ross will be all right for Radcliffe.”