Assistant manager Mick Mulhern joined in the celebrations on the pitch after the dramatic victory over Evo-Stik Premier Division Whitby Town and thanked 680 strong crowd for their support. Taking charge of the side in the absence of Andy Gowens who was on a pre-arranged holiday, he was obviously delighted with the performance of his team. “They were excellent, I was really pleased! Everything’s gone to plan really; there’s been a lot of work put in this week with regards to watching them on YouTube. I’ve spent a lot of time this week trying to plot their downfall but at the end of the day it’s always down to the players who cross that white line. I know it’s a bit of a cliché but it’s a fact.
“They changed what I expected from them but we were ready to deal with that. It wasn’t a problem, we adjusted and knew how to play. It was about if we got the opportunity even if it was the 89th or 90th minute, the question was always about can we overload their full backs, can we get the crosses in and see what happens and obviously, Peter put a great cross in and Jack got on the end of it.
“It was all about patience, keeping the ball which we could have done better in the first half. That’s what we talked about at half time, did we trust each other, which is the most important thing really. The penalty was a key moment, people will talk about it because of Tom’s save but I didn’t think it was a pen, just a little bit of a tangle of legs and the ref gave the penalty. Tom did well, a great save and it did kind of change the direction of the game. If they’d scored they’d probably have changed the way they played but when we got the goal we didn’t give them time to adjust really. It was just about us and after the goal the message to the captain was go to a 4-5-1, play it into the corners and see it out for what I think was the last four minutes.
Looking ahead to the draw for the next round, Mick commented “It’s about getting people in to support the club and the interest will come with a home draw, whoever that might be. At the end of the day the run’s going to come to an end at some point but we’d love to go as far as we possibly can, but how about someone who’d bring a crowd here. I think we deserve another home draw after that performance. I guess we excited the crowd and hopefully they’ve seen something they like and will want to come back and watch us again in the league.”
