Lower Breck manager Gary Moore was left delighted with his sides fight to comeback from a goal down to beat Penistone Church in the FA Cup Extra-Preliminary round replay.
He did acknowledge that there was room for improvement after slow starts in both of their clashes with Church after a goalless draw in the initial match saw Breck travelling to Sheffield on Wednesday night.
Luke Stewart put the hosts in front shortly after the hour mark, capitalising on the Liverpudlians slow start.
But two goals in five minutes from Jamie McDonald, a first-competitive goal for Lower Breck, and Anthony Brown secured Moore’s sides place in the next round against Mossley.
The win comes as a “lift” to Lower Breck but there are hopes that the slow start can be shaken off going forward.
Despite a below-par performance in both ties, Moore is adamant that his side know what they need to do to improve.
“I’d do that every week but not every week you’re going to get away with clean sheets and not playing at your best or having to dig deep, there’s going to be times when you come unstuck and there’s quality as we say in the division and in the FA Cup as you progress, but I’d take wins like that.
“We take each game as it comes if you have to win that way you do win that way, you take it. But we know ourselves we’ve got to raise it. Group message has gone out and we’ve told them we have to be better, so we’ve got to take the pressure off us at times and do it in the right manner.
“We’re an honest group and we were poor last night for the first half. The lads were told at half-time in no uncertain terms that and it seemed to follow on from Saturday, we had the better chances [that day] but it wasn’t the prettiest game. I thought Penistone [Church] were the better side.
“Last night, we made a mistake within the opening 30 seconds and that set the tone for the half, we had moments in it but we wasn’t any football for the team of our quality and he standards we set ourselves.
“There was some honest chats at half-time and to get the second goal – which deflated them a little bit – it was great.”
Their preparations for the replay were far from smooth with the traffic going into the match. With a crowd of 300, Breck were in a hostile environment, despite the slow start, the fight delighted Moore.
“Obviously backs to the wall away from home second half but we looked a lot more like ourselves with the ball unlike the first half where we doing things which were uncharacteristic for us. Good second half performance.
“We said it last night in the changing room and after the game as well, you’re inviting the pressure and Penistone jumped all over it. Looking at Mossley in the next round, they’re another step above, but you can’t be making those mistakes against these teams.
“But the plus side we’ve conceded three in eight so it shows the fights there, we’ve just got to raise it in the attacking point of view.
“That’s probably one of the results if you went back 18 months ago we’d of lost, when its backs against the wall, lads have got to step up.
“There were moments in it but we didn’t play well, second half we certainty did. The fight we shown was quality, Kev McEllin didn’t have the best first half, second he was immense.
“After 10/15 minutes you thought you were going to bring him off with a groin problem and you see these lads, when the going gets tough you get through it.
“A midweek game in Sheffield in front of a 300 plus crowd it’s backs to the wall, you’re one-nil down and you get that goal to make it 1-1 then get the goal to make it 2-1 then for 10 minutes they had a spell where it looked like we needed to get a grip of the ball and we did.
“It was a little flick on and Jamie [McDonald] knocked it in front of the ‘keeper. But that will do him the world of good scoring his first goal for us.
“We’ve been trying to get Anthony up there. To see where it landed, he half-volleyed it into the roof of the net.
“Them lads to be in them areas from what we’ve worked on is great, you can’t always score great goals or worldies, sometimes we try and pass it into the net so to get two goals from set-pieces, from their perspective possibly sloppy, but from ours it’s what we’ve worked on it, so it’s great.”
(Featured image by Paul Moran)
