Haslam reflects on FA Cup defeat

Shortly after the game Manager Nathan Haslam spoke about Whitley’s FA Cup exit at the hands of Hebburn Town.
“It was a very positive start, I think for 40 minutes until we kind of pressed the self-destruct button with some poor decisions I thought we were in control and were the better team. So that’s the positive for me today. I don’t think it was ever a ‘7-1 game’. I know that’s the way it’s worked out but we’ve controlled in large periods a very, very good team. It’s a cup game and as it opened up and we were behind, we weren’t going to sit back, we were going for it, we went for the jugular and that’s why it was so open in the end. Obviously getting a man sent off didn’t help, but for me, I’m not going to read too much into that scoreline because there were a lot of positives.”
He had no qualms about the penalty decisions. “I think all three were penalties but they all led from our mistakes. The killer was the first goal and to concede another poor decision and a second goal just a minute or so later that totally changed the game. But, we’re asking the lads to do things and sometimes they forget certain instructions and that’s when we’re getting caught. We need to take that first 40 minutes performance into Tuesday and I’ve got absolutely no doubt we’ll be fine because we will hurt teams, we’re sure to do, we could have been 3-0 up after 20 minutes. Obviously it didn’t go our way today but that’s the way it is at the minute.
“Without a doubt it could have been a different game if we’d taken our chances. As I say we could have been 3-0 up and I think at 3-0 you shut up shop and go solid but the way it worked out we were 3-1 down after 46 minutes so we couldn’t shut up shop. We had to go for it and that’s why spaces came. I’m very optimistic going into Tuesday. For us that first half was a massive step forward, we were much more of a threat going forward. That was the idea behind why we went with what we did. We were getting in the final third and we created three great one ones, one we put away, two we didn’t, so we’ve got to take the positive out of that into Tuesday. Brad took his goal very well, that’s what we’ve been missing, fair play to both Brad and Luke they’ve both put a contribution today and I can’t ask for any more.
“I’m certainly not downbeat. I’m hurting with the result but at the end of the day we’re out of the cup and we’re back to league action on Tuesday. We need to get our heads down and go again on Tuesday.”