Joey, I imagine there were plenty of positives to take from what was a full-blooded derby match this afternoon?
Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Off the back of a tough week where we’ve been putting a lot of information into the lads because we changed shape and I thought we were superb.
I’m really pleased with the performance, coming here against a really good side. Swindon are a really good side, as we know.
I think we showed the way we want to play. For me, I think we dominated the game. We were the team looking likely to score, we restricted them to counter-attacks and there won’t be many teams that come to this stadium here this year, especially with how much quality they’ve got in their team because they have some really talented boys.
Credit to our lads because I think we showed today we’re coming of age.
I worked out your defence had an average age of 20.5. James (Connolly) made an error for the goal, but recovered well. How pleased were you with the defence?
We’ve limited them to, I think, three shots. They’re a flowing, attacking, expansive team. They really want to be on the front foot and I think once they got their goal it kind of came against the run of play a little bit.
They had a couple of corners and we said to the lads beforehand the pitch was a little bit lively, so if you’re in any doubt don’t take a chance, but also we want to play and pass the ball so I’m never going to get on the lads for trying to play, and that’s what James did there.
Credit to their boy, I thought it was a really good finish from Simpson to beat Belly. You’ve seen from last week it takes a bit of quality and their boy produced it.
But the response to that, for me, was the key. We didn’t panic, we didn’t doubt ourselves, we just kept passing the ball following the game plan and deservedly got ourselves back into it.
I’m a little bit disappointed and the lads are in there, and that’s a good thing. We’ve got young players in there disappointed we haven’t won the game because they felt they were that dominant.
We more than matched them and, as you rightly point out, a 19-year-old at right-back, 20-year-olds at centre-back and then the old wise head of Josh Grant at 23 at left-back. There was that youth running right through the side.
I thought Ryan Loft was outstanding on the frontline. He showed just why we brought him in and that dimension he can give us, and then Finley, Evans and Coutts, along with Gladwin, Williams and Reed, as a combination must be right up there in the division must be up there because they really contain some quality those guys.
Great game of football for League Two, a good local derby. Disappointed we haven’t won it, but credit to all the fans for turning out. That’s the Gasheads who have followed us faithfully and I’m glad we put a better performance on for them and the best is yet to come from this team.
Who scored your equaliser?
They’re debating it in the dressing room there, I’m not getting in the middle of that. Two feisty characters in Connor Taylor and Sam Finley.
For me, I think it went straight in. Connor’s claiming it definitely flicked the back of his head. At 6ft 6in, I’m not going to argue with him.
How nice was it to bring on Leon Clarke, albeit only for the last few minutes? Is he back sooner than you expected?
Yeah. When he went down at Hartlepool we felt he might have to hang the boots up. Credit it to him though. It shows what kind of character he is and how professional he is to not only get himself back but get himself back in quick time.
He’s worked hard. Bonus getting him on the bench today. Lofty obviously came off with a few stitches. I wanted to put them together albeit, I just felt we had to be sensible about the last period of the game. Whilst we want to win it and push on, we take the point from here certainly off the back of the season up to this point. I think it will be a good point when the table tally’s up in May.
What kept Alfie Kilgour and Cian Harries out of the squad today?
Alf’s had a little bit of a reaction to his knee. He had a bit of swelling in it and we have to be careful with it because he’s had a couple in the past and he’s only just back from an injury. Cian was going to be left out tactically anyway because we were switching from a three to a four and then he woke up with a stiff neck as well.
Credit it to him though he travelled with the lads. As I say, we’ve got more than 11 good players and I think the lads showcased that today. I’ve had a weird feeling of these last 10 days, everything has just gone up, the standard of training, operating procedures from every single person.
We’re on the crest of building something special here and with these fans behind us travelling in the numbers they do, great times are ahead for Gasheads.
Joey, going back to the game in October, they were able to play with a lot of control, it was their game really, their rhythm. They had no rhythm today, how did you knock them out of that rhythm?
We were obviously disappointed with how we played in the home game. We had a completely different team that was still finding its way. There was angst in the stadium. People didn’t know whether they were coming or going and it was tough, it was a really tough period.
Ben (Garner) coming back and that added a bit of spice. I thought on the day they were superb. As poor as we were on the day, I don’t think they got the credit for how well they played.
We spoke about that in the build-up, we were disappointed. It felt like somebody came to our playground and outplayed us. We said we were going to come here today and take the ball off them in their playground and we’re going to outplay them.
Bar getting the winner, that second goal. I thought in every single department we were better than them.
This high press you’ve got going is really effective at the moment. Antony Evans typified that; he maybe didn’t create as much on the ball as he would have wanted to but he gave you so many opportunities by stealing the ball high up the pitch….
Yeah, and there is going to be some harem-scarem moments at times. We’re going man on man coverage and that’s through the belief we’ve got in our players as one-on-one machines, everybody can run.
You look at Paul Coutts as the older citizen in there, but Couttsy numbers are right up there every single week and you factor in his quality and leadership qualities as well.
We want to be on the front foot. I don’t want to stand on the touchline and watch 4-5-1 sitting behind the ball, waiting to counter and just kicking it out for throw-ins. I’ve got better things to do with my Saturday’s and Tuesday’s.
I want to see a front-foot team that play the right way. At times we might take risks at the back, but for us it’s about creating, in the modern era, an attacking, exciting, young and vibrant side.
I think the city needs it. Certainly, the blue half of the City have been craving for it for as long as I can reach back into the history books and we’re intent on doing everything we can, along with a superb owner, in delivering the best version of Bristol Rovers that people will have seen in a while.
You talk about a coming-of-age performance, Connor Taylor has been very good for a long time. We’ll focus on Luca Hoole who is obviously a homegrown player, he really stood up today and he’s making a case to be in your best eleven, isn’t he?
Yeah, we changed to a back three last time out. We thought we were going to have more of the ball against Hartlepool in our stadium with a bit of a wider pitch. In the game, we didn’t get the platforms we wanted and we want to develop young hungry players.
When I first came in, too many of our talents were being snapped up, mainly by Aston Villa. Sometimes you can’t turn the money down and be in the kid’s way.
But we need to be a shining light to the young people of Bristol to say if you want to be a player and push yourself then you can develop yourself and get in our first team and Hooley is just one of a number.
We’ve got some good prospects coming behind that. We’re tightening back up with the academy now. We’ve got some development stuff going on there again to try and bridge the pathways back.
As I say now the clowns have cleared out of the club, that’s what they were, professional men can get professional jobs done and we can start moving the chains to give Wael the football club his investments warrants and these fans for their faithful, fanatical support, a team they can be proud of.
While today I’m disappointed we haven’t won the game, I’m also really pleased with many aspects of the performance. The Gas are coming.
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