Following FC Halifax Town’s solid 0-0 draw to Morecambe in the first round of the FA Cup, Town manager Jamie Fullarton offered his thoughts after an admirable Shaymen performance.
“We’re still in the hat for the draw on Monday, which was always the objective. It’s a great credit to the players, and whilst it was 0-0, I think anyone who watch it from both sides would agree that it was a good cup tie”, stated Fullarton.
In the dying moments of the game, Jonathan Edwards stabbed Sellars’ cross in to the net from close range, however the goal was adjudged to be offside. The manager said: “It wasn’t a goal as the referee has said that it’s not one. If Jonny [Edwards] was offside then we’re disappointed, as it was a great cross. It’s something we’ve worked on and Jonny found himself in a great position and it was a magnificent header, but it was chalked off.”
“It was a challenge. When you come away from home against a league team who play their strongest side available, I think that it shows the respect that Jim [Bentley] has for us that he’s brought in his experienced first team centre half fold, who missed the last three or four games, so it was clear Jim wanted to win today. That made it the spectacle that it was and credit where we had to defend, because we had to defend at times.”
“We put our bodies on the line and we defended in the way of what we demand from the players. When we had the ball, at times we were looking for just a bit more quality and composure. But I thought that there were certain passages of play where we created good opportunities and got in to good areas, and it’s just a little bit of quality if I’m going to be overly critical of the boys.”
The Shaymen will host Morecambe at The MBi Shay Stadium in a replay on Tuesday 20th November and the Town manager believed that the game would be “difficult” and that: “they’ll [Morecambe] be confident in themselves and to take a second bite of the cherry to go in to the second round. If you read the programme notes from today, it’s quite apparent that even in League Two that a good cup run from a financial point of view is important, so I have no doubt he’ll play his strongest team.”
“Morecambe will try to apply themselves to win the game so it’ll be a great spectacle because that’s what we’ll be trying to do.”
531 Shaymen supporters had made the trip to Lancashire and made a lot of noise throughout the game. Fullarton stressed that the vocal backing helped his side in the game and how important that “fantastic” support was, also adding: “You’d of thought we were the home team!”
“Hopefully ball number 36 comes our first so we’ve got a home draw”, he stated. “There’s many ways to look at it [the cup draw] and fans will have different views on it, and they’ll want an exciting draw that teases them from a higher league. We want any game at home.”
“Whilst some people may refer to the cup as a distraction or a break, I don’t. Preparation, before any game, we’ll try and win so it means our focus now turns to Dover and we’ll start planning for that because it’s a game at home which we really look forward to.”
The Town boss also cemented that: “the last two performances haven’t wielded the results that we look for, but we’ll look to rectify with against Dover on Saturday.”
Watch the full interview on Shaymen TV
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