By Brian Bennett
Ashington FC manager Ian Skinner was thrilled that his side made it three wins in a row after they came away with a 2-1 victory over Ossett United on Saturday – with the boss adding that he had enjoyed the contest!
After getting his breath back following a pulsating crescendo to the game, Skinner commented: “I am delighted that we have picked up three points away from home after our two results of late at Woodhorn Lane (wins against Hebburn Town and Belper Town). We came here today and wanted to continue our good run and we’ve managed to do that. First of all, I’ve got to say that I thought it was a good game. It’s not often when I stand on the sidelines involved in a game and say I quite enjoyed it – but today I did and credit to Ossett because they played their part in it. I thought in the first half we played some really good football in spells and nearly scored what would have been a brilliant goal after stringing 14-15 passes together in the build up. We switched the ball from side to side and their goalkeeper (Matt Bancroft) has made a decent save from Dan Maguire. However, it would be remiss of me not to mention a couple of chances which Ossett had. Karl (Dryden) our goalkeeper has made a World class save to be fair from point blank range and then from the rebound they’ve hit the post and it was 0-0 at half time.”
He continued: “Second half they’ve gone 1-0 up. That’s been a little bit of an achilles heel for us of late and when teams score first sometimes we find it difficult to break them down because they’ll drop off and give us lots of the ball. However we replied pretty quickly with a good goal through Connor Thomson and added a second – again through Connor. I thought we controlled the game after that if the truth be known until probably the last five minutes. Ossett were the home team; they’ve got nothing to lose and they are going to throw bodies forward. They changed their shape a little bit which caused us one or two problems with two number tens and two centre forwards up there. On another day some of the chances which they’ve had first and second half they might be disappointed not to take something from the game but for me there were pleasing things to come out of it. We came from a goal down to win and in the last five minutes when they have thrown everything at us – similar to the clash at home against Belper Town – we’ve stood up and defended really, really well.”