Report by Julian Tyley
Chalk and cheese from last week” was how Bay manager Jay Bates described Saturday’s 1-0 defeat by Penrith at Hillheads.
“Everything goes in the back of the net and you win 6-0 and you’re all happy and then today everything doesn’t go in the back of the net and you lose 1-0.
“On another day, and I’m not exaggerating on this, it could have been six or seven to ourselves. You look at some of the Penrith players as they’re coming off saying ‘how have we got a result there?’
“Fair play to them, they were resilient in their defence and they defended really well. After they got the goal, they sat back and took all the pressure we could give them and they held on for the 1-0 win so a good result for them.”
“We could have gone in at half time 2-0 maybe 3-0 up. Their keeper’s made a couple of good saves. We played some nice football, some bounce football that we’ve been working on, with the front man and runners off him. It was working well and we went in at half time quite comfortable.
“When we came out second half we had a couple of chances before the penalty. No doubt it was a penalty. Callum Larmouth, he usually steps up and scores them but similar to what happened down in Harrogate, he misses unfortunately for us.
“Then after that I still think we still created a couple of good chances before we overcommitted and our full backs were too high and it gave them an opportunity and they took it. Dan hasn’t made a save to be perfectly honest.”
Whitley’s style of play was entertaining and a pleasure to watch so while the fans were obviously disappointed in the result, there was nevertheless the feeling that it had been a good game.
“We like to get attacking players into the team and play that kind of football and you can see it out there now. The team is starting to gel but unfortunately it was one of them days when we were never going to score. There was a big crowd, about 480, and unfortunately for them they didn’t get to see the goals but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opportunities for that to come. We’ve got to put it behind us and move on to next week, that’s all we can do and go again. We can go maybe 5, 6, 7 games unbeaten and that’s what we’ve got to do when we get those losses.
“What can you say to the lads? They go out there to play football and score goals and unfortunately we didn’t score the goals today, but we played the football, so you cannot be disheartened with that. I said to the lads, get your heads up and we go again. We’ll go on another run. We’ve got Tow Law away next week, but they’ve had a good result today and we look forward to it, to get back out there on the pitch.”
After several weeks of struggling to name a full squad because of injuries, players are returning along with the new signings which is obviously good news.
“You look at the squad now and it’s starting to get a little bit competitive. You’ve got Joe Robson coming back (from his foot injury). Regan Paterson’s a few weeks away. Meeshi’s been out (suspended) for the last two games and then Mikel Thompson was a miss today so he’s to come back next week, so yes, we look healthy in that aspect, but you’ve got to score goals and win games and that didn’t happen today.”
