Report by Julian Tyley
Following his side's narrow 1-0 victory Bay manager Jay Bates agreed that Tow Law had given Whitley a tough game. “They’ve improved have Tow Law. They worked hard for each other, very hard. They were covering a lot of ground were the midfielders. They didn’t give us much time and space on the ball at all. We’ll be happy to take 1-0 and three points after coming off two losses, that’s the way look at it now.
“There were a lot of chances out there you could see the lads needed that little extra touch. The pitches are getting very heavy on the legs at this time of the season and you need that little extra touch and that’s what was happening in the final third, decision making and a bit of composure. It didn’t look like we were going to get the goal and then you’ve seen the impact of the subs, Kyle and Lucas and it was Kyle’s ball into to ‘Macca’ for the goal.”
Kyle had an opportunity to double the lead in stoppage time “Again he took an extra touch and he said after the game ‘how have I missed that?’ But it’s one of those things, he’s come on and livened things up. Their right back was getting tired, he’d had a good game against Alfa to be fair and when Kyle came on he absolutely stretched him and got a lot of opportunities. But to be fair the game was stretched as well. They could have got a goal as well. They were gambling. Dan made a great save. But in the first half Dan’s got down low and pushed it wide for a corner, so he’s made two good saves tonight. He played well.”
Up to 8th in the table Whitley are not far off a top six finish which had been the target at the start of the season. “It’s just that little bit of inconsistency throughout the season, we’ve gone on a couple of good runs then had a couple of bad games, so hopefully this win will help us move on to Saturday against Kendal. It’ll be a tough game on Saturday so if we can do well there it’ll put us in a great position to finish the season strong.”
