“We’ve defended like lions today”

Speaking shortly after the game, manager Nathan Haslam was clearly very happy with his team’s performance in the 1-1 draw at Consett on Saturday. “We are delighted, it’s a really hard place to come. They’ve played on the front foot for most of the game but we’ve defended like lions today so I’m really happy.” The manager was obviously pleased to see Adam Shanks scoring in only his second game back at the club. “That’s what he’s come in to do, we know he’s not match fit yet. We wanted him to start today to get some fitness into his legs and he’s popped up and scored the goal so I can’t ask any more from him to be honest.”
In the second half Whitley had to soak up a lot of pressure and Haslam was delighted with the way the team went about their task. “I said to the lads there’s two sides to football, attacking and defending. We were defending for vast periods in that half but they’re there to defend and that’s what they’ve done. Consett did unlock us in the end but they’ve had chances that they probably think they should have done better with. We rode our luck a little bit but I can’t ask for any more in terms of the way we defended. It was a scorching day and there‘s a lot of tired legs out there. And we had another injury in the first half, to James Martin. It’s not going for us with these injuries and it’s totally changed the shape and the way we played so in the circumstances I can’t ask for any more.
“Consett are experienced, they’ve been together for a while and Terry Mitchell’s got a really good squad here. They know the pitch, they know the conditions, but we’ve got a young group of lads there who’ve gone toe to toe with them for the duration so I’m happy.
“I think the nice thing is we’re solid and competing which is what you need in this league and as we get that bit more confidence and improve on little things we need to improve on we’re definitely going to get stronger. You’ve got to come to places like this and grind it out and that’s a quality in itself. We’ve had two games on the bounce now when we’ve been solid and that’s a huge step forward for us so we need to keep doing that.”