TOWN v BOW STREET WELSH CUP 03.10.08

Town’s coach Mark Aizlewood was pleased to have exorcised the ghost of last season’s early exit. “What was the pleasing thing about the Bow Street game for me was we finally got the Newport YMCA game out of our system. That’s been bugging me for 12 months. Now that’s out of our system we can look forward to the next challenge”.

Aizlewood was impressed with the opposition’s attitude and the way they conducted themselves. "Sometimes, when sides are quite obviously playing against teams at a higher standard the temptation, at times, is to resort to a physical approach. They never resorted to that.

“They continued to try and play and conducted themselves absolutely superbly. I thought that was a credit to them and after the game I knocked on Bow Street’s door and express my gratitude and admiration for them, for the way they had conducted themselves.”

What had the coach said at half time to turn the game around? “I think we dominated from the start despite going behind. We could have scored six goals in the first half. But it wasn’t about that for me. It wasn’t about whether we were going to win the game; I always knew we were going to win the game. It was about good habits and dominating with good habits, good professionalism and doing the right things”.

“If we’d done that first half and still come in 1-1 then that’s fine. That’s what I stressed to the players at half time it’s about setting standards both collectively and independently. We dominated second half again but in the right way. I would have been happy had we only got two goals”.

He added,” I thought Greg Coombes was our best player. What he did on Friday night was to put his marker down. I thought that he showed, with certain aspects of his game, what he can bring to the central mid field area”.

“Perhaps things we have been lacking like a little bit more creativity, a little bit more astuteness with the passing, an ability to spot a short and a long pass. I thought he was first class”.

Deryn's Dugout