Report by Julian Tyley
Bay manager Liam McIvor was understandably delighted to come away from North Shields with a victory which completed a league double over their local rivals.
“It was a great win. It’s a derby, one of the biggest games of the season for me!”
The game started fairly quietly for Whitley as he readily agreed. “We didn’t really do anything (in terms of attacking) in the first 25 minutes. Dan Lister made two fantastic saves and then the last 20 minutes of the first half I thought was all us. I think we were unlucky ourselves with a couple of half chances. Harvey Neary was just wide with a couple of shots but it was satisfying.
“We had a good chat at half time. We know what we let ourselves down with in the first half. We just needed to relax a bit more. Derby games can be frantic, end to end and we seemed to relax a bit more after half time and I thought the intensity levels were good; we pressed them.”
The opening goal came less than a minute after the interval while some spectators were still emerging from the shelter of the clubhouse. “It was great goal from Elliott, he’s got that in his locker. He just needs to trust himself to do it a bit more because he’s got a lovely right foot. He scored a lot of goals last season and we need to try and get up his goal ratio.”
Lewis Suddick was involved in both goals and scored the second with a tremendous finish, a performance which earned him praise from the manager. “Lewis was brilliant all game. He never gave the centre halves a minute and that’s what’s expected. He works tirelessly and he got a great goal.”
Another who caught the eye was midfielder Harvey Neary. “Harvey had an excellent game today. I think he’s probably on a par with Dan Lister for man of the match. He’s done brilliantly today, Harvey, and that’s the level he needs to be at week in week out.”
He continued “The two goals killed them and after that a lot of it was one way traffic. It could have been three or four.
“Conditions weren’t easy but credit to North Shields for getting the game on, the weather’s been terrible but we need to play the games.”
Goalkeeper Dan Lister’s return to the club was enthusiastically welcomed by the fans and his performance in keeping a clean sheet was acknowledged by the manager. “Dan was excellent, everything about him, he was fantastic, he made a double save first half. He had a great game.”
