Haverfordwest County AFC manager Tony Pennock praised the steps forward his team continue to take as the Bluebirds shared a point with Bala Town to set a new club record points tally for a Phase One campaign in the JD Cymru Premier.
With the rain coming down heavily and the wind howling at LHP Stadium, conditions were very tricky for both sides, who had to adapt their styles and ultimately found it challenging to create goal scoring opportunities.
County battled hard to earn a 10th league clean sheet of the season, with the Lakesiders being the fifth side from last season’s top six that the Town have avoided defeat against thus far in 2024-25.
Here’s what the manager had to say in full after the game:
On the game
The conditions were awful in fairness to both teams, I think it’s a fair result. When we could, we both tried to get the ball down, but conditions dictated how you played today and it would have come down to somebody making a mistake and, thankfully, we didn’t make any and estricted their opportunities. But at the same time, nothing clear-cut fell for us either.
On our defence and overall displays
It’s another clean sheet, which is really pleasing. That’s 10 in the league this season. 30 points, which is the most points we’ve ever had as a club in Phase One, and we’ve still got five games to go. So it’s four points we’ve taken off Bala in Phase One, four points off Caernarfon, four off Connah’s Quay, four off Met. If we were told that at the start of the season, you’d certainly take those points against top quality sides.
On our resilience and improved displays
Set-pieces were key today. We said that before the game they were going to be important, and in fairness they had a couple of decent ones first half, and then we had a few in both halves earlier that have almost gone in, and we couldn’t quite get the final touch on them. But again, it shows how far the boys have come. We’re a lot stronger squad. We’ve had a few missing today. Sheppy missing. Greg Walters as well. Abu’s coming back to fitness. So hopefully, by the time we play Penybont, everybody will be available and we’ll go there and do our best because we know how good a team Penybont are as well.
On utilising the week off
We’ve had a lot of games. We’ll be able to have a full week of training next week, which will be nice to be able to get people back on the grass and try and get them as fit as we possibly can. Then we’ve got two games in a week with Penybont and Briton Ferry. So all we’ll be trying to do is work as hard as we always do in training and then trying to accumulate points in both those games before the break really before we play Newtown again on Boxing Day in the league.
On finding ourselves third after 17 games
It’s credit to the lads. Since they came back pre-season, I’ve said it before, they’ve worked extremely hard. Training has been a really good standard because we’ve got so many people fighting for places and when you’ve got that, everything improves. Yes, it’s tough for the boys who are not getting an opportunity, either on the bench or not in the squad, but that’s what football is. Nobody’s guaranteed to play in our team, and that’s certainly the case with other teams in our league as well. So again, we’ll train hard this week, have a break next weekend and then look forward to a tough game at Penybont a week on Tuesday.
On signing a contract extension
It wasn’t a tough decision. Rob spoke to me during the back end of last week, and obviously we had some time then during the weekend after we had the cup game. When I spoke to him again on Monday, we sorted everything out. I’ve enjoyed my two and a half years here. I think we’ve moved forward quite considerably and, with the pitch almost ready now, we’ll be back home on New Year’s Day.
It’s exciting times for the club. I want to be part of it and hopefully the boys who are here now want to be part of it next season and for seasons to come. That’s our aim. We’ll get the next few games out the way and then I’ll start talking to people about new contracts for next season then.
