Haverfordwest County manager Tony Pennock said his team failed to compete in all key areas of the game as the Bluebirds fell to a 4-0 defeat to Barry Town United at Jenner Park on Friday evening.
A clinical display from the Linnets saw them record a comfortable victory under the lights, with County unable to reach the levels they have been at for the last two months.
Early goals from defenders Keston Davies and Ben Margetson were added to late on by Ieuan Owen’s finish and Ollie Hulbert’s penalty on a sobering night for the Town.
Here’s what the manager had to say in full after the game:
On the game
We were awful tonight. Miles off it. Corey Shephard not being in the team, has it made that much of a difference, because the boys in that dressing should be disappointed. We are all disappointed. I picked the wrong team. I’ll have to take the blame for that. I’ve made a few mistakes in the last week or so, and I’ll learn from that, but ultimately it doesn’t matter about tactics or formations or anything, if you don’t win tackles, you don’t pass the ball to your teammate, your team don’t win headers, you don’t land on second balls, you don’t run more than the opposition, then you’re going to lose more than you win, and that was certainly the case tonight. Barry looked a top six team, a really strong, powerful team, and we looked anything but tonight which is disappointing, because I’ve been really pleased with us the last two months, but that certainly wasn’t the case this evening.
We never really looked like scoring for a start. We came out second half really bright and on top, and we looked a threat, but looking a threat and being a threat are two different things, because George Ratcliffe hasn’t had a save to make. I’m not saying Luc Rees has had a lot to do, but he’s picked the ball out of his net four times. Two corners, a penalty, and a finish from the cross, but Barry were far better than us today, really showed the difference between us and them this evening, and that’s three times they’ve beaten us this year. So that sums it up really.
They were just better than us, it’s as simple as that, and when you play against strong teams you have to turn up, and we didn’t turn up tonight for whatever reason, we can make as many excuses as we want, but Barry were head and shoulders better than us.
We need to get back to the levels over the last seven games very quickly, otherwise it’s going to be a tough run over Christmas and a tough Phase Two, but we’re disappointed and we have to get over it quickly and get back to basics in training on Tuesday.
