Report by Julian Tyley
After a keenly contested local derby at newly promoted Blyth Town ended in a 1-1 draw, Whitley Bay manager Jay Bates was pleased with his side’s performance but was quick to acknowledge the strength of the home side.
“You can tell why they’ve had a good start. They’re a good team, a physical team and they’ve got energy as well. The front three behind Dan Wilson are very lively and they play to his strengths by playing it long and playing it off Dan. He’s been around for years and he held it up well for their goal.”
Both goals came in the first 15 minutes of the second half, Blyth going ahead before Kyle Cockburn equalised on the hour.
“It was pretty even first half I thought, they had a couple of chances and Dan made a good save. We did come out of the traps strong.
“After they scored the goal I thought we were quite comfortable.
“I always know that we have got goals in us and once we got the one we nearly did get the two or three. Just a bit of a lapse in concentration in the final third I would say but they’re getting in those positions which is a lot better than we were in the last few games.
“We moved a few things around, Jakey went up top, Cal went into the number ten and George came in at right back and Josh had a go in the middle of the park, so we moved quite a few people around and you could see out there that they can play in a number of positions. They adapted to those positions and they adapted to the formation. You could see it in the first half and more so in the second half when we made the couple of subs that we can really get at teams."
Jake Forster has been moved up front late in games recently but in this game he was there from the start. “Jake is a workhorse. When you’re playing against Jake Forster it doesn’t matter where you put him on the pitch. He’ll make you have to work 110% because that’s what he gives every game, so you’ve got to match that and if you don’t match it he’s going to out bully you and outwork you. To be fair the defenders didn’t do a bad job against him but he did a good job for us and that’s what we wanted him to do, just be a presence and a nuisance for us up there.”
The confidence gained from Saturday’s comeback and victory at Longridge was there to see, as Jay was quick to point out. “You could see it through the players. Robbie Christie I thought had a really good game, Kyle had a better game, he scored his goal and like I say Jake Forster always has a good game and Meeshi was outstanding tonight as well as Josh and Joe at the back, so there’s a few individuals who had really good games. There were no people who were like 6’s and 5’s tonight so that’s why we got the result that we got.”
Whitley are surprisingly without a game this weekend but return next Tuesday night at home to another newly promoted side Easington Colliery at the start of a hectic September when they will have no fewer than eight games.
“Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday there’s a lot of fixtures in there. The break will do us good. We’ll go training on Thursday and I’ll probably give them the weekend off and we’ll go again on Tuesday so yes, the lads will get this weekend off because they’re not going to get many more of them!
“There are a lot of tired legs, after a tough game Saturday, a tough game tonight and we're not making it any easier going behind in every game at the minute, so hopefully on Tuesday we’ll go one up and then hold on to something!”
