Marine manager Neil Young has expressed his disappointment after they conceded late on away at Gainsborough Trinity.
Fraser Preston fired beyond Bayleigh Passant to secure an important three points for Trinity in their push for the playoffs. The defeat dented the Mariners hopes of breaking into the top five as they moved five points off the places.
Young felt aggrieved that Sol Solomon’s close range effort was chalked off after they were severely delayed on their travels to Lincolnshire.
“Very much disappointed, I thought we played well, we were the better team apart from the first 10 to 15 minutes,” reflected the Marine boss speaking to Off The Park. “I thought we had a perfectly good goal disallowed, we don’t know what for, we have watched the footage back and we’re still not sure.
“We were a bit naive in the last minute trying to push to win the game and we’ve been hit on the counter-attack, a good pass and a good finish. Overall, considering with what we’ve had to deal with, generally it was good.
“My only issue at the moment, not just from last night’s game, is how quickly we turn the ball over. Even on Saturday when we won 3-0, we turned the ball over far too often so it’s something we need to look at now and in the future for next season to make sure we’re better on the ball.
“Joe Hardy’s not played any football for months apart from Saturday, we knew they liked to attack in wide areas, what we didn’t want was our forwards being pressed back so we went three at the back – it worked really well even though we had two minutes to go through it in the dressing room,” he added. “We defended well, I think Bayleigh has had one save to make, pleased with the performance but obviously we haven’t scored a goal again. People point to strikers but all our attackers were on the pitch at some stage.”
They face Whitby Town this weekend looking to keep their hopes of extending their season alive going into the closing stages of their first campaign back in the Northern Premier League.
However, Young dismissed the notion that there is greater importance on a performance following their disappointing result in midweek.
He continued: “I don’t think about it that way, your results will dictate where you finish.
“The key thing for me is people keep forgetting and I don’t think we’re superhuman, personnel-wise they’re good players but a lot of them haven’t played football; Ben Hodkinson has played little football at Bootle, Joe Hardy has played virtually no football, Joe Bunney is playing with knocks and hasn’t played a lot.
“We’re trying to replace but we’re trying to manage minutes of lads, Kyle Hayde hasn’t played much and done something to his groin, it’s not as easy as people think. We’ve got to look at the situation, we’re not playing Football Manager, it’s not just looking at players ability and everything before making a decision.
“Whitby is as tough as it comes away from home, their recent form has been excellent, it’s a tough place, we’ll prepare as we did for Tuesday night, we’re a match for anybody hopefully that will reflect on Saturday.
“The key thing is the lads put in another good performance, it took us five hours to get there, from getting off the bus to kicking off, I think we have had 25 to 30 minutes and we put in a real good performance. I thought they won the league with the celebrations that were going on, everyone loves a last minute winner but it’s three points, we’ve got to dust ourselves down and prepare for another tough game.”
[Featured Image: Susan Nugent]
