Report by Julian Tyley
Whitley Bay manager Jay Bates described the 0-0 draw at Hillheads against Northallerton Town as a frustrating evening. “Yes, frustrating, it’s one of them where you don’t take your chances so you don’t win games and that’s exactly what happened tonight.
“I reckon there were a few tired legs so we freshened it up a little bit, but still you could see a few of the lads were lethargic. We played Wednesday, a tough game down at Boro Rangers with a lot of travelling. Then we’ve travelled on Sunday to Beverley, another tough game and we’ve come in on a Tuesday night, so that’s three games in the space of six days and the lads are tired. You could see that out there but I think if any team was going to win it, it was going to be us. The keeper’s made a couple of good saves, there were a couple off the line. Apart from that the last 10-15 minutes it was all us. We were driving for the winner until the final minute when they get the opportunity to take the win. Thankfully for Corkhill he made a great save for us.”
Callum Corkhill made his debut and the manager was pleased with his performance. “We know Callum’s a good keeper, he’s at Heaton Stan for that reason because he is a good keeper. Unfortunately for him they’ve got a number one up at Heaton Stan who’s a very good keeper, so to have Corkhill come in when Dan’s away; it’s perfect for us, because we give him that opportunity to give him game time. He knows the lads and you could see it out there. He slotted in comfortably. His handling of balls in the box was comfortable; you could see it. He just snatched it out of the air. Not only that he’s quick off his line, he’s a big lad but he can move, so he takes that little bit of pressure off the defenders when the ball is over the top and they’re out of position.”
Referring to Callum Larmouth who was making his debut, Jay commented “We keep saying he’s a nine but for Callum it’s a bit frustrating because we don’t know his best position. He does score goals, you look at his record from West Allotment and North Shields. For us alone I think it was 64 games and he scored 48 goals and that’s in Northern League 1 so he does score goals, He’ s been in Northern Premier, he scored goals there. Tonight it was probably a bit lack lustre from him, he wasn’t on it, I would say, but neither was any of the forwards and that’s why we made changes in the second half, early, after ten minutes.”
The other change to the starting eleven saw Luke Parkinson come in. “We needed some fresh legs. Robbie played the first three games, same as Josh. We rotated a little bit, other than Meeshi and Jake I would say Parky was one of the better players on the pitch. He didn’t put a foot wrong, he got forward, he’s done what needed to be done. He’s Mr Reliable, he’s played 700-800 Northern League games and that’s what he does.”
Northallerton made it difficult for Whitley as Jay acknowledged “Their shape looked good at times but we didn’t move it quick enough. You could see them getting behind the ball. They had two banks of four and a big lad up top and it was difficult to break down. They just made it frustrating and that’s what they were set up to do. You could see in the last ten minutes they were trying to kill the game. You’ve got to score to win games and that’s what we didn’t do today.”
