AFTER beating Harbour View for the Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL) First End-of-Round title, Boys’ Town, have found the going rather tough in the second round, losing three of four games played.

The Andrew Price-coached team went down 1-2 to Trench Town rivals Arnett Gardens in the local derby on Sunday. But despite their winless start to this phase of the competition, Price is confident the team can turn things around and relaunch their title bid.

Price told the Jamaica Observer this streak was not much of a concern as every team goes through a bad patch.

“We’re currently going though one… we just have to play our way out of it,” he insisted, adding that they were still in the title race, pointing to their last two seasons as plausible reasons to be optimistic.

“We’re seven points behind the leaders and we’ve seen in the last two years that it’s not an insurmountable task to catch them. We have two-and-a-half rounds of football left, so we’re not in a panic situation, we just have to play our way out this slump,” Price reiterated.

The former national defender believes Boys’ Town have not been playing badly, but have not been clinical enough in front of goal, which has proven costly. However, he insists they must have faith in what they have been doing up to this point.

“We just have to keep together as a team… because we must have been doing something right to have won the End-of-Round Final… We must continue working hard and hope that things improve as the season continues,” he said.

Boys’ Town came into Sunday’s 15th round of matches in third place with 23 points, but defeat against Arnett Gardens saw them slip three spots to sixth. Price, however, says it’s a long season and they will be challenging for the title at the end.

“All the teams are closely bunched, so a victory could carry you to second, and a loss could drop you all the way down to seventh, so we just need some consistency…,” he said.

“We’re not going to hold our heads down; we’re not going to bring any panic on the team. We’re going through a bad time and we will just have to play our way out of it,” he said.

Since the second round, the Red Brigade have had to do without some first-choice players due to a varying reasons, but Price believes in his squad and expects them to regain their early-season form.

Boys’ Town play away to Montego Bay United in their next fixture, and the veteran coach is determined to stop the slide.

“If we can go down to Montego Bay and pick up all three points it would give the team a world of confidence, and we intend to do that,” he said.