By Brian Bennett
Ashington manager Nick Gray spoke of his frustration on Tuesday night after watching his side put up a spirited show against Matlock Town.
Josh Gilchrist and Craig Spooner scored in the second half but the Colliers lost the game 3-2.
“Listen after the Consett clash, we wanted a massive improvement and I was pleased with the lads because they gave their all against the best team we have played this season – and that’s no disrespect to any of the other sides,” he said, “We set our minds to it and played with intensity and worked hard and thought we might get some rewards but we didn’t get the run of the green when it mattered.”
Matlock opened the scoring in the ninth minute with a massive deflection: “The first goal
just typifies our luck at the minute” he added, “They have crossed the ball and Scott Lowery has slipped on a pitch which looked great tonight by the way and credit to groundsman Scott Robson. The ball took a deflection and wrong footed ‘keeper Tyler Jones but its the old cliché of if you don’t shoot you don’t score. However, with the form which we have been on recently, credit to the lads because they didn’t buckle and kept on believing.”
Gray was unhappy with Matlock’s second in the 25th minute: “I’ll study the footage because I thought it was a blatant foul on the far side which led to the goal – but one thing which I will say is that the incident was 70 yards away from our net! Matlock have committed bodies into the box quicker than us but going in 2-0 down at half time, I thought we were still in the game.”
He continued: “The staff believed that we could get back into the contest – we just wanted the players to do the same – and to be fair we started the second half really well having a couple of half chances early doors. Karl Ross then put a great cross in and Josh Gilchrist has jumped for it and the ball has floated into the net. Now it was game on – we were on the front foot – and we wondered whether to change things but decided against it because we were doing smashing. You could see the lads had put a lot of effort into it with some of the players like Scott Lowery, Marc Ellison and Ben Sampson not having played a lot of minutes recently and we just thought about bringing on fresh legs. Then we’ve had another opportunity in the final third to put the ball into a good area and we’ve hesitated, gone backwards and they have broken on the transition with numbers – something which they are good at. The kid (Conor Washington) has had a shot which has hit the bar and guess what? Their player (Cameron Wilson) has reacted quicker than us and scored.”
In the 92nd minute, Ashington reduced the leeway and Gray said: “The lads kept on going and we’ve scored with a great strike by Craig Spooner. It’s a fantastic individual goal full of technique and it gave us hope – but I was amazed that there were only four minutes of time added on when there were nine substitutions; a couple of head injuries and a little bit of time wasting.”
Gray is looking for the same desire from his side starting with Saturday’s trip to Ossett United: “It’s consistency that we need to look at and improve on as we go again on Saturday,” he added, “If the players continue to give what they have done tonight then there won’t be any issues. We have three important games coming up in a week and we have got to play with the same intensity. The bottom line is if we do that then we have got a chance in all three (games) to get points but the players have to belief in themselves and if we continue with that desire, our first win should come sooner rather than later.”