Speaking after the action packed 4-4 draw against Ashington, joint manager Tony Fawcett joked that the performance could be described as “Great going forward, terrible going backwards! …No, maybe not, but I think as a fan I’d have loved to watch that game, two teams who’ve just really gone at each other. They’ve decided to have a go at each other tonight. There was a lot of good attacking talent on the pitch. We were great going forward – all of our goals tonight were good goals – and they had players who were great going forward and sometimes it’s tough to defend against players like that. It makes for an entertaining game I guess. It’s difficult, we could definitely have defended better but we weren’t helped by some of the decisions from the man in the middle.”
Derek Forrest, referring to comments he made after the Hebburn game at the weekend added “ I think the players are beginning to find that balance I was talking about. There were lots of good things that happened tonight, we saw a bit more of Whitley Bay on the attack. We’ve got to find the balance and ‘shoulder up’ but that will come with time. We keep reminding ourselves it’s still early days and we’ve played some good sides as well. Ashington tonight have got talent in their side and we’ve got talent as well and it shows up in the score, four each. The game’s about scoring goals and stopping them at the other end, that’s the challenge, there’s no doubt about that.”
Tony agreed that battling back after going a goal down so late in the game says a lot about the side. “Absolutely, I think we’ve all played in games where we’ve scored a goal, then a goal conceded, and the same again. When you keep getting pegged back and they take the lead that’s a tough place to be in and the lads have shown great character, absolutely, I was really chuffed for them to be honest but they’ve rolled their sleeves up and gone again so credit to them!”
Derek added “and I think the lads are still a bit disappointed maybes that they didn’t win the game and seal it off, so that’s a good sign as well.”
Tony was impressed with the extent to which Whitley controlled the game especially in the second half. “In the first half it was a little bit open but in the second half we controlled most of the possession, we controlled most of the probing. The times they got at us were counter attacks. I’d like to see stats for the second half because I felt like we played the game in their half.”
“The message for the second half” explained Derek, “was that we wanted to carry on being a threat up front, and after the way it went in the first half when you score then concede, score then concede, you’re always looking for the solution to stop conceding. Sometimes it’s been a mistake, a ricochet, a poor decision or as on Saturday an own goal and it’s about stopping them.
“When you come off after getting six yellow cards you ask yourself ‘was it a bad game, a dirty game?’ and it wasn’t at all, it was just a competitive derby game.”
