Report by Julian Tyley
After the game at Shildon, Bay manager Jay Bates reflected on what had been a hard fought game and single goal defeat against a side who are in tremendous form and are guaranteed at least a place in the play-offs.
“They’ll be happy with the 1-0 win, no doubt about that. Second half it was backs to the wall for them and Dan’s never had a save to make. In fact he’s not really had to make a save apart from the free kick and the penalty. After that he’s never been troubled for the best part of 65 minutes. But unlike last week the final third wasn’t as good this week. We created good opportunities but just didn’t deliver.
“Shildon are a very good team, they’re good at what they do. They’ve a couple of players missing today but you could see they’d still got a very strong team, they’ve got strength, in depth in their squad and that’s why they’re sitting second in the League and I think in the last 25 games we’re the only team who’ve beat them.”
The only goal of the game came from a free kick and it was a mistake by keeper Dan Gladstone, but as Jay was quick to point out “Dan knows he should have saved it, but then ten minutes later he’s come and saved the penalty and kept us in the game. But for the goal he knows he didn’t get over to the ball quick enough and his wall was wrong. He knows that Greenwood scores from a lot of free kicks this season so he should have been prepared for it.”
There was controversy about the penalty that was given to Shildon and then a second shout for a penalty that was turned down by the referee. Giving his view on the incidents Jay said “The first penalty I thought wasn’t a penalty and then the second opportunity they had I think should have been a penalty, but what goes around comes around, they got one but didn’t get the other. Credit to Dan, it was a good save from the penalty and it kept us in the game.
“The message at half time was just keep doing what you’re doing. We’re getting in good positions and you could see in the second half it was just the final touch that was letting us down. Lucas got played through on goal and the heavy touch has put it through to the keeper. We’re getting in and around the box but we’re not getting shots off. It wasn’t happening in the final third today.
“It was the same for both teams really. Neither of the keepers were tested and that’s why it was just a 1-0. We knew where they were dangerous. If you look at their goals a lot are from set pieces and crosses so that was what we worked on.
“Every game in this league is a hard one and that’s what Shildon will be saying, that it was a very hard game. You could see at the end how tired their players were. We did match them for the full 90 minutes.”
Just after the final whistle, emotions got the better of several players and Mackenzie Sharpe was shown a red card. Jay emphasized “Lads need to contain themselves, as you could see by the chaos at the end of the game after the final whistle, but they’ll learn.”
Looking ahead to Tuesday night and Whitley’s final midweek game of the season when they visit Birtley Town, Jay added “Birtley are on a good run at the moment and that will be another very tough game.”
