By Brian Bennett
Ashington manager Nick Gray admitted that his sides’ exit from the Newcastle Flooring Northumberland Senior Cup against Morpeth Town on Tuesday night was ‘a cruel one to take’ – but said he couldn’t have been prouder of his players.
On a night of high drama at Craik Park, the game finished all square at 2-2 before the Highwaymen cemented their place following a penalty shoot-out which they won 4-3. Morpeth will now face Heaton Stannington or Newcastle United U21’s in the final which will take place at St James’ Park.
“I thought the lads gave a great account of themselves but sometimes in football you don’t get what you deserve,” said Gray afterwards, “To be fair we were a bit nervous before the game but I thought we were the better side. Morpeth scored and that seemed to galvanise us a little bit because we grew into the contest. We said at half time as long as we stay in the game, the longer we would get confidence and I thought we did that. We had some good opportunities and had more entries into the final third than Morpeth.”
He continued: “In the second half the game opened up and I thought we found better spaces. We got an equaliser then to be fair you think about substitutes and its one of them where the lads who came off had done nothing wrong – it was just a case of trying to freshen things up. Then after we went a goal behind in injury time, I thought the boys showed character to come back and get an equaliser. It then goes to penalties – but I don’t know why games like this don’t go to extra time because we are all here, the people are enjoying it, so what difference is it going to make playing an extra 30 minutes? Penalties are a lottery and to be fair we were behind a couple of times and our goalkeeper Ryan Catterick kept us in it with a couple of saves but fair play to the lads who stepped up to the mark to take the penalties. However, I couldn’t have been prouder of the lads than I am tonight. We were down in numbers and that’s down to our small squad but every one of the players gave everything tonight. It’s a cruel one to take but there are more positives than negatives.”
Gray – who was in charge at Craik Park when they won the FA Vase in 2016 – added: “I’ve had a lot of good times here at Morpeth and I’d like to wish them all the best in the final. The Morpeth chairman Ken Beattie has had a challenging time recently and I’d like to send my best wishes to him as well.”
Ashington return to action on Saturday (March 1) when they face North Ferriby at Woodhorn Lane in the NPL East Division and Gray said: “If we show the same attitude and commitment for the last ten games of our league programme we’ll be fine. We have got to work on our consistency because you can’t just turn it on one week and not the next. We think we know how many points we need to stay in the league and the quicker we can get them the more we can enjoy the run-in to the end of the season.”