Report by Julian Tyley
After beginning the Northern League season with two draws away from home, Bay manager Jay Bates was delighted to return from Whitley’s midweek game at Penrith with a 3-2 victory.
“We knew it was going to be tough, they took six points off us last season and they’re very lively on the break. We know what to expect when we come here especially on the 3G surface, they’ve got young lads that can play they’re not a bad team so it’s nice to do the comeback this time rather than teams coming back at us, nice to get the win!”
Whitley went a goal down midway through the first half through a midfield mistake. Jay said it was a “sloppy goal to give away” but added “it’s like I said to the lads at half time. You’ll make up for it. Layton gave the pass away playing the ball inside and Meeshi did the mistake that led to the goal. But Layton made up for it second half and got two goals so it was exactly what I said at half time ‘he’ll make up for that mistake’.
“It’s what he does, I know all about them through training when I’ve watched him down at Blackpool, when he cuts inside and he strikes the ball lovely. He had a couple of opportunities and he took them. There’s not many keepers who will stop them.
“For their second goal we were slow in the midfield, we got caught on the ball then out of position. When we got caught on the ball it was down on the left and they crossed. It could have been cleared three or four times but it just ricocheted every time into their path and then the lad’s just put it in the bottom corner, nothing Mauro could do about it. It was just unfortunate that we couldn’t clear our lines.
“We’ve got the character in the team. We’ve got team cohesion. We knew we going to get chances. We had umpteen chances in the first half but we just couldn’t convert them. We were always going to get them in the second half. Everyone could see it was backs to the wall for Penrith for the 45 minutes. Other than the goal they didn’t have another attempt on target until the last two or three minutes when they were putting everything up there.
“When we were 2-1 down and we got a pen, Cal Larmouth stepped up like he did so often last season and he takes the pressure well doesn’t he!
“If we cut the mistakes out and you look over the games we’ve played, we should be on nine points but we’re not, we’re on five but we’ll take it and move on.
“We’ve got strength in depth now, and there are a couple more lads out but they’ll be looking to come back in the next couple of weeks, so it’s looking healthy.”
Jay finished by paying tribute to the supporters who made the 170 mile round trip in midweek to be at the game. “For the fans that travelled we’d just like to say thank you. It’s not easy coming to Penrith, it wasn’t easy for the lads coming to Penrith midweek but we’ll take it and go again.”
