‘To a man I thought they were unbelievable’, says proud Shaymen boss Wild
TOWN BOSS Pete Wild praised the guts and determination of his FC Halifax Town side after their hard-fought 1-1 draw at Notts County.
Halifax held on for 55 minutes with 10 men after Jack Senior’s sending-off, with Elisha Sam cancelling out Aaron Martin’s goal.
“I thought it was a really good start, I thought we were on the front-foot, we had a plan to come here and go right up against them, see if we could stop them playing,” Wild said.
“I thought that worked early on and I thought the referee was staying strong, until his linesman makes an amazing decision to give Jack a second yellow.
“I think it’s ridiculous, I think he’s bowed to the pressure of the fans and then it destroys the plan we have and the contest. They end up getting a goal and the only team you don’t want to go down to 10 men against is Notts County with how many good footballers they’ve got. But to a man, what a shift from everybody tonight, and I think that shows everybody in our football club and in the league what determination and guts this lot have got, because they’ve got it in abundance.”
Wild confirmed Senior will receive a one -game ban for his dismissal.
“It was a proper nip and tuck game until that point and it ebbed and flowed,” he said.
“Then unfortunately the officials got it horrendously wrong and killed what would have been a fantastic contest.
“We came here to play 3-52 to stop the obvious threat of their wide men, and then when Jack got sent-off we tried to go 4-4-1 to sort things out but we were getting overrun left, right and centre. So at half-time we decided to go 3-5-1, back to our plan, and lose a centre-forward, and to a man I thought they were unbelievable tonight.”
When asked what he said to his players at half-time, Wild said: “The players in the dressing room felt they could still do it, there was a massive buzz in the dressing room at half-time that we could still do this. And they’ve gone and delivered it.
“The amount of times me and Chris (Millington) must have said to each other ‘right, come on, what do you think?’ and the answer was just ‘keep bedding in for the rollercoaster’. I think I counted every minute of that second half. But sometimes it’s just about showing from the sidelines that your emotions are in check.”
The Town boss added: “It’s a great point on the road and yet again we’ve gone toe-to-toe with one of the big boys in this league and we’ve got a point.
“We’ve been to Chesterfield, Grimsby, Notts County and Boreham Wood and picked up valuable points on the road.
“Good teams go on the road and get points and we’ve done that.”