By Brian Bennett | Photo: Ian Brodie
Ashington’s assistant manager Liam McIvor was clearly delighted on Saturday after the Colliers had extended their unbeaten run to four matches with a convincing 4-1 success over Brighouse Town.
“Looking at the bigger picture, our results show only two defeats from our last 12 games – and today was another fantastic win in what for me was a game of two halves,” he said, “Overall I was really happy with the victory. The result put us nine points clear of the drop zone and I reckon we still need one more win to secure our league status.”
McIvor admitted that the opening 45 minutes was a hard watch: “When you come off the back of a good away win which we had through the week, sometimes you are just waiting for something to happen – someone to come up with a bit of magic. However the first half was awful with passing sideways and backwards and I don’t think we had a shot until the 38th minute.”
He continued: “We proved that you have got to earn the right to win games because that was certainly what we did in the second half where we were much the better side. Basically all manager Nick Gray and myself said at half time was for us to try and get out of second gear and to go forward with a bit more urgency. The first thing we should be looking to do is to go forward – and we did that. The strongest part of our game is our two v ones around the sides and we didn’t do that once in the first half. We play and create our goals from those situations and when we did it two or three times in the second half we got goals from it. Ryan Wombwell got up high (on the pitch) and won us the penalty and it was a great finish from the spot by Josh (Gilchrist). Then in another two v one, Craig Spooner has slid in Josh who has pulled the ball across for Karl Ross to score.”
Without a fixture in midweek, Ashington now prepare for a trip to face Bridlington on Saturday (February 22) and McIvor added: “We are on a good run and it’s another big game for us.”