We caught up with a pleased Craig Rouse to discuss his sides big win at home this weekend.
A huge result for the boys? First give us your reaction and then how pleased you are with the result?
I thought the lads were outstanding from start to finish and rightly deserved the three points for their effort. We spoke throughout the week about sticking together and working for each other and that’s exactly what happened. In possession we’ve played better in games this year and come away with nothing, so it was good to see our work rate and effort rewarded with three points.
Rob Guilfoyle made his debut and there’s no better way to start as a forward, how pleased were you with him?
I’m delighted for Rob as he hasn’t played much football over the last few months. We told him to get out on the pitch with a smile on his face, enjoy the game and show his quality when chances came his way. There’s no better to start and his goals were good clinical finishes.
The team as a result have performed well in previous weeks but haven’t been able to grind out wins, was this one of those kind of wins?
It was a good gritty performance from a group of lads that worked hard for each other. It’s been a tough couple of weeks but you see what people are made of when the chips are down, so the players can take massive credit for the win. We’ve been guilty of being wasteful when we’ve had spells of pressure at times this season, so to see us be clinical when we had our periods in the game was pleasing.
As with any win it’s only three points and we need to ensure we continue to show the same desire and work rate over the next few months to put ourselves where we feel we should be.
We now travel to Marske on Tuesday, what can we expect from that game?
It’s probably the toughest away games of the season and on a Tuesday night so we’ll go there as underdogs. We’ve shown at times this season that when we are underdogs it brings out the best in us and we’ll go there with a game plan to try and ensure we give ourselves the best possible chance. Football is full of upsets and when the whistle goes its 11 v 11 so we’ll approach it with no fear and see where it takes us.