- Cann (43', 79')
Haverfordwest County AFC manager Tony Pennock felt his side missed a big opportunity as the Bluebirds slipped to a 2-0 defeat to Llanelli Town AFC in the fourth round of the JD Welsh Cup.
County had chances aplenty, hitting the post and crossbar on numerous occasions, but were left to rue their profligacy in front of goal as a set-piece and counter-attack proved to be their undoing.
The result means the Town can now give their full focus to the remainder of the JD Cymru Premier season, as we look to clinch our place in the top six for the first time.
Here’s what the manager had to say in full after the game:
On the game
It’s a tough one, that. A tough one to take. First of all, I’ve got to congratulate Llanelli. I thought they were outstanding for long periods without the ball. Although we found it hard at times to break them down, we still had enough chances to get back into the game at least. But the goal before half time was a tough time, because I thought we’d played well first half without really testing the keeper. We gave away the first goal and then second half we dominated, we hit the bar and the post, the keeper made some good saves, they cleared the lines, and we’re just not landing on things in the box when other teams are doing that against us.
It’s tough. We’re out of the cup. It was a big opportunity this year, which we knew, and we’ve let it pass us by, so we have to get over it quickly. We’ve got a bit of time between now and Newtown, and we’ve got to find a way to start scoring goals, or I’ve got to find a team that scores goals, because at the minute, we’re not.
On the performance
It is disappointing, but like I said, Llanelli are a good side. I’ve watched them, I watched them against Carmarthen a couple of weeks ago in a very good game, and I’ve watched them against two other teams in their league. We knew it would be tough. We also know if you do the basics well, more often than not, you win more games than you lose, and we just keep shooting ourselves in the foot with the little parts of our game, whether it’s crossing the ball into the box and it’s going over the bar, not hitting the target with shots. That’s something that we’re doing continuously. We are creating chances, and there were a few decent ones tonight. We haven’t put them in the back of the net, which, again, I’ll say it’s not down to the strikers, because plenty of people have had opportunities tonight, and for whatever reason we just can’t put them away at the minute.
On focusing on the JD Cymru Premier
We’ve got four tough games, and we have to find points to cement our place in the top six. We can’t let tonight drag us down and dwell on it. It’s gone. We can’t do anything about it now. We had an opportunity, like I said, and we’ve thrown it away this evening. So our next opportunity is finishing in the top six to guarantee a place in the play-offs. That’s our next target. That’s been our target all season, more than anything else, and that remains our target. There’ll be some games tomorrow, and there’ll be games played before we play Newtown on Boxing Day, so the table will be a bit more cleaerr by the time we go to Newtown. So whether that’s in our favour or against us, we’ll see. It doesn’t really matter. We have to win our own games of football and not rely on other people to help us out, and the boys need to get over this quickly because we’ll have some tough sessions now before we play in Newtown.
On Carmarthen Town’s hospitality
It will be nice to train on our own pitch and go back home. Carmarthen Town have been fantastic with us, but it’s always nice to play at home and we look forward to doing that in the very near future. They’ve been fantastic. Everybody connected to the club has helped us out. I’m just disappointed that we couldn’t win tonight in our last game, but it’s gone now, and now we just have to prepare ourselves for a tough game at Newtown.
