CHALLINOR’S BLOG #32

Challinor’s full reaction to Tuesday night’s win over Worksop Town…

It was obviously a really exciting game and you could tell that there was plenty of nerves out there and an awful lot on the game and it was great to come out on the right side of the result.  It’s a great feeling to have gone one better than last year and we’ve just got to try and finish it off now against Ashton United on Saturday.

We’re only really half way through so we need to make sure that we recover, prepare for Saturday and go again.  It’ll take another monumental effort to win the game.

Personally, I don’t think we played well, and in fact I know we didn’t play well.  But I think that’s credit to Worksop because they came and played at a really high tempo, got balls forward, got long throws and corners in the box, made us defend and we’ve show a huge amount of spirit and a huge amount of will to win the game rather than a great performance in terms of fantastic football.

We’ve had to really dig in and people have done their jobs.  We picked the team knowing that they were a big, physical side and that we’d be put under pressure and the team selection was based around that.

I’m sure he won’t mind me saying but the spirit was epitomised by the fact Mike Barnes’ kid was in hospital and he comes and played on Tuesday.  That sort of spirit and mentality really saw us through against a really good Worksop side.

It was a poor goal to concede from our perspective as we knew they’d put us under pressure and it’s not often you concede from the first ball coming in.  We’ve defended the first ball but we’ve not picked up the second and they’re massive when corners and throw-ins are coming into your box and they’ve scored but it was a good reaction from us to pull it back straight away.

In fairness, in the first half we were edgy and I suppose when you try and play as we do it takes an awful lot of bottle to be brave and get on the ball and in fairness to Worksop they stopped us doing that.

I don’t think the game ever settled down either for the whole 90 minutes in terms of either side having an extended spell of possession if you like.  We had a couple of opportunities on the break at the end when they were sending people forward for corners and we knew we’d be a threat on the counter, but we had to defend really, really well and put our bodies on the line to get through the tie and thankfully we have.

That will stand us in good stead for Saturday now but it’ll be a different mentality and type of performance required against Ashton.

It’s been a long season but a successful season and it now all hinges on one game.  I said to the players before, and last year on the pitch at Hednesford, we know exactly how Worksop felt.  It’s a horrible situation in terms of losing at this stage.  We used that motivation from last year and spoke about how it felt and the euphoria of winning at the Reebok and the elation of Tuesday night was there for everybody to see.

We’ve got to use that and take it into Saturday and whether that be quarter to five or half past five we need to be ones feeling that same emotion and celebrating another success to finish the season off.