“We were excellent from start to finish”

Whitley’s joint manager Tony Fawcett, who along with Derek Forrest and his coaching staff had masterminded the opening day FA Cup victory at Garforth Town, summed up the feeling of the entire management team and playing squad as they set off back to Hillheads after Tuesday night’s impressive 3-0 victory which earned them a home tie against Dunston in the next round.

“We’re over the moon! If we could have picked a game plan to go the way it has, that would have been it. I thought we were excellent from start to finish. I was really pleased. I thought it was a tight first half; it wasn’t great if I’m honest. I think both teams were nervous and glad to be back playing and didn’t want to make a mistake so I think the defences were on top.”

Turning to the sensational overhead kick from Adam Shanks that produced the first goal, Fawcett enthused “I guess it was a great goal, an absolutely fantastic goal and just before half time which was a really good timing as well.”

Was it fair, as fans had already been saying to be talking about it as a goal of the season? The joint boss had no doubt in his mind about that “Yes, I agree, as the cross has come in you could see him starting to line up to do it.  I thought ‘what are you doing?’ and then he’s caught it brilliantly and it goes in and obviously it’s great for the lad because he’s worked really hard pre-season. They’ve all worked really hard. It’s a new squad, they’re starting to get together and know each other. It was a super performance from them and they’re all pleased and they’re buzzing a bit and rightly so, but it’s just one game and we’ve got to start getting ready for the next one.

“We knew they would come at us second half but I thought our lads started fantastically and took the sting out of the game really well, keeping them out. Our lads deserve credit for that, we talked about it at half time. They’ve not really had a chance to hurt us much until maybe a little bit late on. They did have that little spell for about five minutes early in the half but on the back of that Richard Coulson scored which was great, really good timing for a goal.“

Then came the penalty which was a crucial point in the game. Fawcett continued “2-0 is always a funny score line but you’re not saving penalties like them. Maybe Jamie was a bit close to the crossbar but it was a good strike and I was always confident it would go in. But even if he hadn’t scored that, I wouldn’t have been too worried because they weren’t really pushing us.

“I’ve watched thousands of games now and you always get a feeling if you’re ever in trouble. And I didn’t get that feeling at all today, even when they did get past our defence I thought there was always that last line so really I felt quite confident, I didn’t think we were ever going to concede. There were a couple of half chances that came from ricochets but not too much else. It was a great team performance, the lads worked really, really hard. Every single person has really gone and put a shift in.

“We talked about having finishers that come on and finish the game for us, I wouldn’t call it a substitution, it’s another part of the process to win the game. There’s always a game plan in place and today was a day to bring Kieran and ‘Rambo’ (James Thompson) on quite late, so good on them! We’ve talked about how good our squad are in depth and it’s really important to have good depth to the squad if you want to achieve anything in this league. We can’t just rely on 11,12 or 13, we need 17 to 20 lads competing. There were some disappointed not to be starting but it’s ok for them to be disappointed as long as they stay positive within the ranks. The squad is really good and Callum Anderson will be coming back in shortly.  It looks like everyone has come through the game unscathed and they’re all looking happy and should be alright for Penrith on Saturday.”