Interview by Julian Tyley
Bay fans were still celebrating Whitley’s stoppage time winner as they made their way out of Hillheads after witnessing a dramatic 2-1 victory over high flying Easington Colliery.
The recent improvement in form which has seen them go unbeaten in five league games also delighted manager Jay Bates “ It’s been coming” he said “the lads are starting to settle now, we’re starting to get a few lads back from injuries and they’re starting to know how each other play, so yes, a great game and a great win’
“Easington, you know what they’re about, they’re sitting second for a reason. They’ve got a lot of good forwards and they’ve got a lot of players who like to win their individual battles and make it into a hard game no matter what.
“They caught us a little bit sleepy. We knew exactly what they were going to do. They try and bounce it back and go a bit long for the wide men to run off and get in behind you, and that’s exactly what they’ve done and fortunately for us Adamson’s pulled one over the bar so yes they started off quick and we were still in the changing rooms. I think we settled into it and it was quite an even half and we both had opportunities, like Lennox going through one on one with the keeper and he’s blazed it over the bar and they’ve had similar opportunities but not much clear cut where the keepers have had to make a save except when their keeper’s made a great save from Liam Heywood. It was going in the bottom corner and he tipped it round the post and what a save that was!”
“I think we matched them, we just had to do the basics right which was win our individual battles and outrun them and that’s what we tried to do. You could see the improvement in the second half by Lennox by driving with the ball rather than taking too many touches. We tried to get Max on the ball a little bit more and we just tried to be positive and always on the front foot. We knew exactly what they were going to do and tried to do similar things by bouncing it and going long and in behind so I think it all panned out in the end in the second half.
“I always say it, when the crowd get behind us we start playing more and more and you could see it when we were 1-0 up and we still had opportunities. But so did they though don’t discard that either, they went to a 4-2-4 and very direct and lumped a lot of balls into the box so fair play to the defenders that had to clear a lot but we did, we got them on the counter attack, Nathan when he came on he was a handful, a right nuisance. You know what you’re going to get with him, he took being on the bench well. Obviously he missed Tuesday and the great win over Whickham because if you look at Whickham’s score today against Bishop Auckland, I said they’d be no mugs they like to get it down and play football and they’re full of athletes. So everything worked out in the end and like I say even when it went 1-1 we could still hear the crowd, we were still going forwards, you could see the energy levels and when we got the winner that’s it you know the crowd are behind you. We just rode it out to the end.
“I haven’t been happy for a while, these weekends have been painful. My family will tell you that, but yes it’s always good to get that winner. We’ll move on the from that I think that’s five unbeaten in the league now so I think you can see the positive side of things now and the way they’re trying to play football.”
Paying due credit to Easington he continued “They’ve got good footballers there, only lost one, second top goalscorers in the league, they don’t concede, least conceded in the league I think 8 . It would have been nice to get a clean sheet but we’ll take the win over that.
Looking forward to another busy week, he concluded, “Blyth Town away on Tuesday and Crook away on Saturday. It’ll be tough, every game’s tough.”
