“Lots of positives”

Looking back on Saturday’s 2-2 draw against Newton Aycliffe, Bay manager Mick Mulhern said there were lots of positives to take from his team’s performance and he felt they deserved to win the game.
“I thought we were the better team to be honest. In the first half I was really pleased with the shape. it was something we were discussing beforehand about making sure we were defensively solid and hard to break down and that would give us something to build on. We were creating more this first half than in the first half of other games. We’ve gone in at 0-0 with far more positives than negatives. The second half was about doing more of the same but I knew it was going to be difficult because we had lads in there who hadn’t played many minutes for a while and might tire.
“We’d made a couple of changes, some of them were forced, one or two injuries, but last week the performance was unacceptable so some changes had to be made and I think everyone who came in has done themselves a power of good. We continued in the same vein, very good second half, got the goal and we were managing the game well. We were cruising and in control of the game and then we had 3-5 minutes of madness. It was a bit like a punch off Mike Tyson when they scored their two goals, For their first one it was an error then we switched off for the second goal when they put the ball in the box, which was disappointing, so then we were chasing the game. So that’s a test of character for our players now, very similar to my first game at Newton Aycliffe. I thought we showed great character, it was a great run from Lewis to get the penalty, but we had other chances as well. We had several chances before and after that goal and maybe we ran out of time and if there’d been another 5 minutes we might have got another one.
“It was good to get players back, Macca (Craig McFarlane) was back after injury and Callum (Anderson) got some time back on the pitch, not very much, but that’s another positive. I was really pleased with everybody, and in the second half we were very strong. Ben Christensen picked up man of the match, he had a really good game and he’s been patient waiting for an opportunity. Andrei’s worked so hard for very little reward but he’s had his one chance and he took it well, he’s a strong boy. I couldn’t be critical of anybody really.
“We deserved to win and that’s pleasing going into the run of games we’ve got when we’re going to be tested by the top sides so we’ve really got to stick together. We’ve got players coming back Callum, Stephen Ramsey and hopefully Luke Salmon back next week. So that’s good, we’re going to need everyone with the run of games coming up. Getting good performances from those players today creates more competition, those on the outside today will have to work hard to get back in which is a positive environment which we need to develop. There’s big players coming back over the next week or so and they’ll have to fight to get back in, which is good because the lads who were in today will want to keep their shirt.
“I’m a bit disappointed we didn’t win but even so here are lots of positives we can take from the game.”