- Abbruzzese (53')
- Whitmore (70', 74')
Manager Tony Pennock was pleased with his team’s overall performance as Haverfordwest County beat Aberystwyth Town 3-0 at the Ogi Bridge Meadow yesterday.
Rhys Abbruzzese’s goal and a brace from Kai Whitmore gave the Bluebirds all three points, which sees them climb two places to eighth in the JD Cymru Premier.
On a wet afternoon in Pembrokeshire, the Town dealt with the conditions well and limited the Seasiders to very little in front of goal, with this morale-boosting victory standing them in good stead ahead of next Saturday’s visit to Pontypridd United.
Here’s what he had to say in full after the game:
On the result…
“The three points were huge for us today to get some confidence back into ourselves. It was a long time coming, but it was a good performance, we kept a clean sheet as well, so we move on to next week.”
On the performance…
“In the first half we didn’t move the ball as quickly as we can, or should, and we made it easy for Aberystwyth to get back into a good shape, that’s something Aberystwyth are really good at, they get into a shape and they make it hard for you to break them down. That was certainly the case first half, but then second half, getting the first goal was important. I thought we started the second half really brightly and at a good tempo, and our quality was good. It was a great ball in and well finished off by Abu [Rhys Abbruzzese], that’s the way we need to play more often. Like I said, three goals and a clean sheet, and it was important today that we got three points.”
On the goals…
“I thought all three goals were good. Goals that we know we can score, goals that we work on in training with the patterns that we have. We just haven’t been capitalising on those opportunities we’ve been making in previous game, but today we took them and, again, a clean sheet always gives you the opportunity to be in the game. We looked quite solid at the back today as well.”
On the defensive display…
“To be fair to Aber, they don’t need many chances to score goals. They’ve got people in forward areas and a couple of midfielders who score goals for them as well, and we knew we had to keep their opportunities low today, which we did. They had a couple of shots on target, but in the main they were from outside the box. It was important that we didn’t give them the opportunity to put the ball in our box that often. So it was a good defensive display from one to 11, which I’m always pleased with.”
On the week as a whole…
“Cardiff Met away is always a tough game. We know that. We lost there last year. In the end, we were disappointed to come away with one point, but at the same time we saved a penalty in injury time, so you’ve got to be thankful for what you’ve got. We knew today was a must win game, really. I don’t often say that to the lads, but it was important that we won today, and the lads put a good performance in.”
On climbing two places…
“In this division, if you get back-to-back wins or, like today, four points out of six in our last two, it does move you up a couple of places. We’re three points off sixth place, and there’s a lot of teams vying for fourth, fifth and sixth I would say. We need to be in the mix for one of those, but we’re only going to do that if we perform like we did today.
“We need consistency in our performances, we need to be clinical when our chances come, and we need to keep clean sheets. That’s something that we’re working on really hard to improve as we progress for the rest of this phase up until the end of January.”
On the next challenge…
“We know how tough Ponty away is. They’re a good side with good experience in their team, and they’re well coached. We know we have to go there and back ourselves, we certainly back ourselves in every game we play, and we know that, again, it will be a tough evening next Saturday, but we look forward to it.”
