13.12.08 Carmarthen Town 2 Caernarfon Town 1

Following Neil Thomas' dramatic injury time penalty save manager Deryn Brace conceded that it had been a bit of a narrow escape for Town. “It certainly was. At one-all mid way through the second half I would most probably settled for a point. It wasn’t our day. As much as we tried to make things happen it just didn’t materialise and I haven’t really got a reason for that.

" So for us to go on and find a winner and then have Neil Thomas save a penalty in the last minute I’m absolutely delighted with the win. It shows great character within the squad to try and do the right things and see a game through. On that side of things I’ve got nothing but praise for the boys”.

Commenting on the difference between the two halves Brace said, “I think they upped their game. They certainly weren’t playing like a side at the bottom of the table. They got the goal early in the second half which gave them momentum but I thought, come the quarter of an hour mark, we started coming back into it and we started to take over a little bit”.

“It was then a case of whether we were going to get another decent effort. Jamma’s missed a good opportunity and then Cotts went on an overlap and he’s put it back in. Hudgy’s got in the box and taken the chance well”.

“Then it was a case of doing the right things. Yes it was an open game and you felt that they might have an opportunity towards the end. And they did; they had the penalty. Neil Thomas has come up with what I thought was a fantastic save, because I thought it was a great penalty”.

Did the manager take confidence from the four game winning sequence? “I think everybody has to. Without being on top form we’ve got results. We’ve played well in some games and others we’ve ground it out. There has been many a time when we’ve deserved to win games but we haven’t so I’m not going to be too lose about this game. It was a game that probably we didn’t deserve to win, but we have, I’ll take it”.

Was there any reason that Town looked a little under par? “I wouldn’t put it down to one specific reason. I’d give a bit of credit to Caernarfon. I don’t think we should look too deep at ourselves. Sometimes you have to look at the opposition and say they made it hard for us. They are fighting for their lives and with the results last night they knew that they were going to have to pick something up today. They had to come out and do something, especially at one-nil down, which is what they did”.

Commenting on performances Brace added, “Unfortunately what we seem to do sometimes when one player performs below par the rest take it upon themselves to join him. But the manager had been pleased with some performances. “Richard Hughes did well at the back. He’s looking more composed and more influential. Danny seems to be coming back into form and I thought it was a nice little cameo performance from Jamie (Horwood) who came on and caused a bit of a problem for them. The reason for bringing him on was we wanted a bit more presence in terms of height  as things were coming straight back on us. In all fairness to Jamie he came in and did really well.

Deryn's Dugout