By NEIL BONNAR BOSS Stan Ternent will be looking for Bury to regain their conviction when they seek to step up their promotion challenge at struggling Bournemouth tomorrow.

The Shakers have only lost one of their last seven matches but have seen their rise up the Second Division slowed down with just five points taken from a possible last 12.

Last gasp goals were responsible for three of those against Bristol Rovers last Saturday and Wrexham in midweek.

Ternent was unhappy his players almost let Rovers off the hook during a scintillating display in every department apart from their finishing and described the performance in the 1-1 draw at the Racecourse as "our worst of the season".

The spotlight will fall mainly on the strikers who have scored more than one goal in only two of those seven matches - the 2-1 victories over Peterborough and Bristol Rovers.

The defence will not escape Ternent's critical eye after the manager expressed his disappointment at the depth of their defending at Wrexham.

But he will remain happy while the rock solid rearguard continue to provide the kind of solid foundation which has seen them concede five goals in those last seven games and just 14 in the first 16 league matches of the season.

Goalkeeper Dean Kiely believes the statistics give an accurate reflection of Bury's quality defending and that they can go from strength to strength.

"We've got a good solid back unit with a good understanding," he said.

"I don't want to tempt faith but the way we are operating at the moment I can't see us letting in a lot of goals.

"We've got good players at the back and if we play to our strengths we are going to keep a lot of clean sheets."

The defence is the only area where Ternent's mounting injury problems allow him to field his first choice department.

Lenny Johnrose misses his second match with a groin problem and fellow midfielder Gordon Armstrong is still ruled out.

Up front target man Ronnie Jepson and Rob Matthews are given no chance of recovering from hamstring and groin strains and are joined on the injured list by Shaun Reid and Andy Woodward who was undergoing a cartilage operation today.

That leaves Ternent with 16 senior professionals available for the trip south today and he moaned: "What we are taking is all we have at our disposal, and two of those are goalkeepers.

David Johnson looks set to return up front either in the new-look 5-3-2 formation on show at Wrexham or as part of the more familiar three-pronged strikeforce Ternent has played all season.

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