FC Halifax Town manager Billy Heath has heaped praise on double goal-scorer Tom Denton after the number nine’s brace saw The Shaymen come from behind to defeat ten-men AFC Fylde 2-1 at The MBi Shay Stadium.
Danny Rowe opened the scoring for the visitors with a chipped finish before Denton headed home an equaliser two minutes later.
With just 13 minutes remaining, Town’s top scorer curled in the winner to complete his double and seal all three points for Town.
After a slow first-half, Heath felt that the tactical switch at the break helped utilise Denton’s strengths. “I said to the players to go very direct”, said Heath, “and we did and we got so much joy when just literally went back to front and it proved again, the big man has done it again.”
“But the response was fantastic, you know we go straight up the other end, great header from Morgs (Adam Morgan), then Dents (Tom Denton), you know usually it’s the other way around.
“Dents follows it in and gets the goal and suddenly it just changed it a little bit. But, I thought you know after we weathered the first 15 minutes, we played well enough.”
“Second half like you say, their two centre halves they tired a wee bit and their spring goes out of their step a little bit in the last period of the game. And you know, Dents really was commanding today.
Heath felt that his side we too passive in the first half as Fylde dominated much of the possession in the opening 45 minutes. “I thought first-half we just them far too much respect,” said Heath, “which was unlike us because we’re usually on the front foot but we were just content to dropping into holes which was really disappointing at half-time.”
“And then we came out of half-time and we lost our way shall we say for 15 minutes. I’ve said all along the best important thing is what happens after 95 minutes and what it says in the win column.”
“The response from when we went a goal down, which was coming because we were getting dragged all over the place and we were second to everything after the first half.”
The Town boss also believes that a lack of concentration was to blame for his team’s slow side to the second period. “You’ve got to be disciplined and we just lost our discipline”, Heath added, “We lost our concentration at half-time, but once we got the goal to equalise then it had become more of an even affair again and at the end of the day what a finish from the big man, fantastic.”
“They had a couple of opportunities before then and like I say they were pulling us all over the place, their movement was really good.”
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do. But fair play to the players because we’re patched up again, it doesn’t help when you’ve got a left back playing right back. The squad’s getting thinner all the time but we carry on.”
Watch the full interview on Shaymen TV right now
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