Daws reflects on draw against Aldershot Town

Interim first team manager Tony Daws spoke to Iron Player following the team's 3-3 draw against Aldershot Town at Glanford Park.

He begun by sharing his thoughts on the result, saying: “I’m very disappointed. We didn’t start the game well again and went behind in the first couple of minutes. The lads came roaring back and got us into a good position, and I thought we played well in the first half. We didn’t need half time to be honest, because that’s what killed us.”

Daws continued: “We spoke at half time about what we needed to do and we knew what was coming with the opposition. We spoke about making sure we compete with them, weather the storm, and that we win first balls. We needed to keep it going from the first half and for some reason that didn’t happen. We didn’t turn up in the second half.” 

The interim manager also spoke about the difficulties he faced from the sidelines: “It was difficult to manage the game in terms of substitutions. We were conscious of Kgosi (Ntlhe), who had to come off at Oldham on Tuesday, and Rob Apter who had to come off too. We kept asking if they were okay to see out the 90 minutes, because we didn’t want to waste substitutions.

“We tried to manage the game, but we were forced into a substitution early with (Andrew) Boyce getting injured. This made things difficult for us and we had to try and get through that period. In the last ten minutes we tried to go and win it. We made a couple of changes by throwing (Cameron) Wilson and (Elliott) Whitehouse on, but couldn’t quite get the goal.” 

On the fitness of Ntlhe, the boss said: “He seems to be okay. We were managing Kgosi through the game because he managed about an hour the other night. We were conscious of his calf cramping up again, so we had to manage that situation and be sensible.” 

Daws finished by providing an update on Jacob Butterfield and Boyce, who both came off. He concluded: “Boyce has a calf injury so we will see the extent of that over the weekend. Butterfield has a nasty gash on his forehead, he’s had several stitches so it doesn’t look too good for him at the moment.” 

See much more from Tony Daws and Tom Pugh on Iron Player.