With the players given a day off after the previous night's exertions manager Ian Brightwell was left to stew over the disappointment of yet another home defeat. But he was quick to praise the support of the fans who played their part after the Silkmen had fallen behind to an early Danny North goal.

"Ironically I thought we started the game really well but fell behind after an uncharacteristic mistake by Ryan Cresswell. He's been superb for us since arriving at the club and their lad took the chance well. It knocked a bit of the stuffing out of us and to be fair to Grimsby I thought they were the better side in the first half," said Ian.

"It would have been easy for the fans to get on our backs after the run of recent home games but they didn't and they really got behind us. It was a big lift and I thought we battled well against one of the better sides we have played in recent weeks."

"We started to create chances and their keeper did well to save from Gareth Evans. And after the break I thought we were a lot brighter. Backed by the support I always thought we could get back into the game and unlike in recent weeks I would have been happy with a point."

"Gareth did well with the goal. He reacted quickest and he hit a sweet shot past the keeper. But we committed the cardinal sin of switching off, and even though their winner was a great finish, it should have been prevented."

"Even then we still had chances to get back on level terms with Jamie Tolley coming closest but it wasn't to be. We certainly put them under pressure and I have to say I felt slightly aggrieved with some of the decisions the referee made. The other week we played close to seven minutes over time at the MK Dons. Last night he only added four when there had been five substitutions (30 seconds each), a goal and a lot of deliberate time wasting. It just seems to be one rule for some and one for Macclesfield. I don't want to sound like that is an excuse. But it would be nice it there was some degree of consistency."

"But we also need to become more consistency ourselves. The reason why we, and all the other teams are around us are where we are is because we haven't been able to put any run of note together. That has to be our aim over the remaining games to ensure we don't get dragged down."

"Personally I am not one for looking at league tables. The equation is pretty simple. If we don't start winning games we'll be in trouble. But I am confident we can."