While obviously disappointed at conceding a late equaliser, Andy Gowens acknowledged that it was a fair result in the end. “Yes I think so, but it still feels a bit of a defeat when you’re 3-2 up with just a minute to go and you’ve just got to clear your lines. On the balance of chances it was good for the neutrals that were watching, but for us managers it was a bit of a basketball game at times. I didn’t think we really got going today even though we scored three goals. We shouldn’t be dropping points when we score three. I thought we were still a bit ‘bitty’ and we let them back in it when we were 2-0 up. I thought we sat back a bit and let them get at us. The players were warned at half time that’s what would happen again if we let them, they’d get at us, and we still let them do that. Then it looked like they might go on and win it; they had the momentum at 2-2 but we dug deep and got another goal. But right at the end, with just a minute to go we should deal with it. Some people were saying it wasn’t their throw in but it’s no good blaming the ref. You’ve just got to get on with it. But they (Benfield) have got some quality in their side, some massive quality and looking back I think if you’d have said we’d get four points from Benfield over the season I’d have been happy with that. There are lots of positives to go forward, we just need to learn from today. We were too nice at times. At the end we were playing neat football when we just needed to get rid at that stage and we’d win the game 3-2.” Reacting to Chris Bannon’s penalty save, the third by a Bay keeper this season he replied “It’s unbelievable to make so many penalty saves, we’ve not trained for them that’s for sure. We knew how Dennis Knight takes them but it was Brayson who took this one and yes, it was a great save by Bannon.”
For the first time this season, Whitley named an unchanged starting eleven but judging by the Andy’s comments, it may not happen very often. “It’s good to be able to have an unchanged starting eleven, but I’ll look back now and reflect on it, maybe I should have changed something. I keep saying ‘you’re in the strips, keep the strips’ but they make it hard to keep the same team. Today we kept the same side but in the first ten minutes we weren’t at the races, not there at all and you think, ‘should I keep changing it and freshen things up?’ Yes it’s nice to name an unchanged side but it might not happen again very soon. I think you’ve got to keep it fresh and get people to perform. There might be some changes next time. We’ve got a week off so it’ll be a tough fitness week. Some of them certainly need to get a bit of fitness work in!”
