FC Halifax Town midfielder Jake Hibbs expressed his bitter disappointment to Shaymen Player HD, after The Shaymen crashed out of the Buildbase FA Trophy at the 3rd qualifying round stage.
Dreams of a Wembley return for the defending champions looked to be dashed after a first half brace from Marcus Dinanga. Halifax picked themselves up in the 2nd half -with Hibbs and Matty Kosylo evening the scoring.
However, this was to be short-lived as a wonderful team goal finished off by Ted Cribley 17 minutes from time restored the away sides lead and progress to the next round as deserved victors.
“We wanted to get at them and score an early goal or two but that just never happened,” said Hibbs “You have to give credit to Matlock who I thought were excellent, in particular their front three who were sharp throughout.”
There were questions prior to kick-off whether the game would indeed go ahead due to the extreme temperatures appearing to freeze one side of the pitch (South stand side).
Play was initially played at a slow tempo with many players appearing to play on their toes.
“Yh the conditions were tough out there; you don’t want to go out on a pitch that’s essentially frozen,” admitted the midfielder “But they were able to play their game so we can’t really use that as an excuse. We had plenty of chances to win the game but just didn’t go for us tonight.”
Hibbs returned to the side after being absent in the last few games – selected ahead of David Lynch and Danny Clarke.
“Having not played for a while it was good to get some game time. However I wasn’t happy with my overall performance – yes I got myself a nice goal linking up with Richard (Peniket) but it was irrelevant in the end as we’ve been knocked out.”
“At 2-2 I thought we looked on top at that stage – they looked down and didn’t look like carrying on but a great bit of skill from their left winger has won it for them” Hibbs added.
The Shaymen must now pick themselves up from this disappointing result and look ahead to Sunday’s trip to National League side Eastleigh – for what is arguably the club’s biggest game since the reformation.
“Obviously everyone is looking forward to it – it’s a massive game for the club,” said Hibbs “Ideally of course we’d like to have gone into it in better form – a victory tonight would have given us a slight confidence boost but we’re all up for Sunday’s game and hopefully can get the result we all desperately want.”
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