Southport manager Liam Watson enjoyed what he saw from his side in the FA Trophy win over Farsley Celtic.
The hosts were severely depleted after the misfortune of COVID and injuries meant they were resigned to playing some of the younger players.
Watson praised the West Yorkshire side but lauded his players in their display as they cruised to a 3-0 win.
The game was tarnished with adverse weather conditions that saw the half-time interval cut to just five minutes to limit the risk of postponing the game.
Jordan Archer, Niall Watson and Doug Tharme all found the back of the net booking a home tie against National League side Solihull Moors in the next round.
A challenge that Watson is looking forward to.
“The fog, none of the games in the last few weeks have been ideal but we’ve just kept on grinding out wins which is important isn’t it,” he told Off The Park.
“I thought we were good. We did what we had to which was important, on the whole we could’ve scored more. I just wanted the game over because I thought it was going to get abandoned because of the fog.
“If you look at his record it’s one in two all the way through both spells. People are probably realising what he gives us but his record always been good.
“His record over both spells tells me he has been consistent. Probably because we’re scoring more goals and once you score more goals, people start looking at a few other things.
“I like Jordan. I like being in his company, I like how he is on the pitch, I’m a manager who’s got the best out of him and he’s earned my respect by the way he is as a person.
“It doesn’t dampen the win, it gives an awful lot of respect to Farsley as a football club for what they did. They could’ve easily thrown it in but they didn’t, they played and they were happy to use [under] 23s.
“All credit because the easy way out is often to not do it that way.
“They’re doing really well in the league above, it’ll be another nice gage for us. We played Altrincham and I don’t think we should’ve lost the game, I thought we were good on the day but we didn’t see it through.
“It’ll be nice to gage where are and see how much further we’ve got in terms of confidence etc because we wasn’t on a good run when we played Alty but at the moment if we can keep the run going, we will be on a great run by the time we play Solihull.”
[Featured image: Southport FC]
