Sam Ricketts reflects on Town’s disapointing seven-goal thriller this afternoon.
Sam gave his overall reaction from his team's performance today. “Ultimately disappointment of losing the game, which I felt we started slowly. We gave ourselves an uphill battle and gave away some really poor goals and when you do that you give yourself an uphill battle. The boys tried to climb it and to be fair, they did climbed it with 20 minutes to go and with all that euphoria we played that last 20 minutes like we had two minutes of the game to go. We did become a little bit open but a few decision makings towards the end.
"The way we got back into the game through character and effort was superb. Second half, think we played more in their half, we were pushing and ended up getting back in at 3 all. All the momentum is with us, and we just couldn’t quite get that by going on for the winning goal, maybe we were a little bit too open a little bit to gung-ho and then one little sucker-punch and then we lost the game.”
Town saw themselves three-one down within a minute of the second half being played. Town wanted to get goals and to force the turn-a-round of the score. “I felt second half we made a few changes and it changed the game. You’ve got a lot more control in good areas for deliveries of crosses and that’s where a couple of goals came from. I just wanted to go on and get that winning goal.”
Abu Ogogo secured all three points for his side after scoring the winning goal with only three minutes of normal time remaining. “As a defender you look at every goal and you see the mistakes and you can see the mistakes probably 10 seconds before the goal goes in and I thought that’s left us a little bit open. Next ones a little bit open and the next one is a little bit open again and in the end it cost us. It hasn’t always done because we’ve generally defended really well. I think probably, three of the four goals should have been easily avoided.”
Today was a day where Town saw an unsurprising defending performance. “I thought we started a little bit slow and we gave ourselves a mountain to climb but we climbed it and you just want to consolidate and don’t want to lose the game from that situation. We were still pushing for the goal and it wasn’t as if they were peppering our goal. They started cheating a little bit, their number 7 for them, and it just tipped their way in the end. A thrilling game for the neutral which unfortunately didn’t go our way.”
Sam’s team gave it everything today to bring back the score-line. Every player gave their all on the pitch today and were unfortunate to not seal a late winner. “It says an awful lot that a team who are two-nil down, you’d say that it’s done. It was 2-1 and then a minute into the second half we’re 3-1 down. It would have seen a lot of teams off.”
“There’s a real togetherness and drive in the dressing room. Collective spirit gets them back into it being three-all and it’s just disappointing to not go on and win the game after that.” Sam praises Town’s togetherness and the momentum that they have going on at the minute.
Town saw a huge penalty claim inside the first half after Louis Thompson looked to be pulled down, however, Graham Salisbury had other ideas and ended up booking six players from either side. Thompson produced a great run into the box using all his force and energy to create something for Town, however ended up coming away with no penalty and a yellow card.
“It’s a penalty. You can say Louis has slowed down and the defender has run into the back of him, he’s slowed down because he wants to have a shot, you saw the speed he used when he went around the guy, he’s not gone past him, he’s gone around him so he has to slow down to take his shot and the defender has run into the back of him and it’s a penalty. Unfortunately I’ve been a recipient of that many times myself and given those penalties away, so I don’t understand it. Why would Louis go down in that situation in the box. To say there’s contact but not enough contact, you can’t say that we didn’t try.”
Sam was seen talking to the referee for quite a while at the beginning of the second half. “I was just asking his opinion. Referees have a hard game and they don’t mean to make mistakes as such. I was just asking what his view point was. Why he didn’t think it was a penalty. He said he didn’t think there was enough contact which means there was, which means that it’s a penalty.”
Shrewsbury scored three goals today, all three of them coming from the midfielders. Josh Laurent bagged his first brace whilst captain Ollie Norburn scored from a set-piece. “I’m delighted for Josh, he’s starting to put himself in situations to score those goals. The one against Bradford a week or so ago and it was a similar situation today, another left-foot finish and then he ends up in the box again really where it matters to get us back in the game and get that all-important third goal.
"It’s probably one area of his game where he knows we want him to score more goals and it makes him more of a complete midfielder where as you’ve got his running ability to make sure he ends up in the six-yard-box and score like he has done twice today.”
Town seem to be positive when it comes to set-pieces after Norburn scored from a dead ball today, just a week after Brad Walker also scored from a set-piece. “It was a great delivery off Norbs, a gaps there so he puts it into an area where the keeper can't really save it because someone’s running against it and to be fair I was right behind it, it was in as soon as he hit it so it was a captains performance.”