- Davies (59')
Haverfordwest County manager Tony Pennock was pleased with the overall display of his side in the 1-0 defeat to Penybont, but said his team must be more clinical to take advantage of their good play between both boxes.
The Bluebirds acquitted themselves well against a Bont side who finished second last season and look set for a similar tilt this term, with County having the best chance of the first half when Ben Fawcett’s header from point-blank range was saved, with further opportunities going begging after the visitors had been reduced to 10 men and then taken the lead.
The Town travel to north Wales to take on Flint Town United next Saturday, and Pennock is sure that a similar performance level will stand his side in good stead for the game and indeed the remainder of the campaign.
Here’s what the manager had to say in full after the game:
On the performance
I thought first half it was a good game of football, two good teams going at it, and I thought we were very good. I thought we had opportunities, maybe not clear-cut other than Fawcey’s header which the keeper saved and then we had a few other half chances. I haven’t seen the disallowed goal from the corner yet, I don’t know what’s gone on there, but I was really happy at half time, the boys were happy going in and going back out to start the second half.
Then obviously the game has changed on the red card, but we just couldn’t capitalise on it. We didn’t show enough quality in the final third to get the equaliser after conceding a really poor goal.
On the continuity in the squad
When you have a group of lads who have been together for that length of time, there’s quite a lot of them can slip into different positions and know exactly what we want them to do. Obviously Penybont going down to 10 men, and us conceding, we changed to a 4-3-3 then and looked more of a threat. But on the night the quality in the final third, we had several chances for several players – it’s not just down to the forwards to score, it’s down to everybody – and when those chances came we didn’t put the keeper under enough pressure. He’s made one save first half, apart from that he’s been pretty tidy in what he had to do, and we haven’t really tested him.
On the competition this season
I think we had one draw against Penybont last year. They had a good team and had a fantastic season and I don’t see them being any different this year. I think Penybont and Caernarfon will be the teams behind TNS this year. I think it’ll be between one of those for second and third, and then I think after that a lot of teams are very similar and we know we have to work hard in between games to better than we were tonight. That’s what we keep our focus on. Yes, it’s disappointing to lose the first home game. There was a decent crowd again, as normal, so it was a shame that we couldn’t capitalise on the chances we created.
It’s definitely going to be difficult this year. I think a lot of teams have strengthened and the competition’s going to be really tight for fourth, fifth, sixth places in Phase One. There’s a lot of us very similar and when you get opportunities to pick up three points, you have to take them, and we haven’t done that tonight, so we get on with it, we get ready for a couple of tough training sessions next week and a tough trip to Flint. They had a good point tonight at Bala. We lost up at Flint last year, it was our first defeat of the season, so it’d be nice to go there and get a positive result. But if our performance levels between both boxes are the same as tonight, and we can just improve our finishing, then we’ll be OK, but there’s a lot to do and there’s a long, long season ahead of us.
