After what had turned out to be a hard fought victory over Ashington on Saturday manager Nathan Haslam acknowledged that it had been a good week for the club. “Yes if you’d told me at the beginning of the week that we’d take seven points from nine I’d have taken it all day long.”
As for Saturday’s game itself, while pleased with the outcome, he felt that his team should have done better, especially in front of goal. “I think we dominated the game. In the first half we should have gone in more than one up. We had chances, we went one on one and the keeper’s pulled off a couple of good saves.
“The message at half time was that we’ve got to go out and do the same things again and punish them, but we didn’t. The wind and the snow came and built up a bit of a gale and I think that’s helped them get the two goals. It was really poor defending on both goals from our point. So we’ve tried to give it away but the lads have shown character, they’ve come back and they’ve found a way to win it, and it was fully, fully deserved as well.”
Lewis Orrell’s 83rd minute winner earned praise from the manager. “It was great goal that won it. We should have had a few more of them. We’re just failing to pull the trigger at the right time, we were trying to walk things into the net. But Lewis deserves it. It was one of his quiet games today. He was carrying a slight knock on his ankle from the game at Hebburn, but it’s fitting for him because he’s been outstanding for us and I’m glad he’s putting goals into his game.”
Suddenly conceding two goals to be 2-1 down Whitley were up against it but Haslam explained “ As a manager you know these things happen, and you’ve just got to find a way to come back, through sheer grit and determination and keep believing in what you’re doing and they did it.
“Michael Colquhoun’s been outstanding in the last three games since he got his chance and he’s taken it. He’s doing hard things, though he got a rollicking at half time for not taking that one on one! He’s a striker, he needs to do that (take his chances), so he’ll learn from that but he fully deserved his goal. The first half one on one with the keeper, he’s gone to smash it and somehow he’s scooped it, but it was one of them, a bit of a freak shot really.”
Reflecting on the recent upturn in form he added, “Winning’s the name of the game and we play some really good controlling stuff but it’s absolutely pointless if you don’t do it in the final third. Today we’ve won the game so a lot of people won’t raise any issues, but for myself, we were nowhere near good enough in front of goal. We have to capitalise and punish teams and if we do that we’ll make things a lot easier for ourselves. Today was ‘one of those days’, but the newspaper says 3-2 and we’ve three points so I suppose that’s all that matters isn’t it!”
He agreed that the conditions during the second half, made life difficult for the players. “You could see it from the lads as they came off the pitch that it had caught them, and all of us, off guard a little bit because the wind, rain and snow was going in Ashington’s direction. It certainly helped them a bit, but irrespective of that, you’ve just got to deal with it. We didn’t and we’ve given ourselves a mountain to climb but we climbed it!”
