Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Sunday 30 March 2008

League Trophy (F)

2

Grimsby Town 0

Attendance: 56618

Till was the effervescent essence of Town-€™s attack in the first half and his usual ephemeral presence after the rich tea and sympathy of half-time. But this is ground control to Captain Tom, you've really made the grade. The papers want to know whose shirt you wear: ours. Newey was an excellent exemplar, being imperious in sweep and sway. Where-€™s the aimless punting? Where-€™s the brainless shunting? Where is the Newey we love to moan at? He moved in ways never seen before. He was the greatest show on earth, they said. Phil Barnes was absolutely brilliant. To the left, to the right, high and low, the human blanket wrapped all. Only a penalty and diversion around the North Circular defeated him. SatNav does not take into account RefMad. Phil Barnes we salute you: string out the garlands for his homecoming.

"The game hinged on two penalties -€“ a missed one and a well-taken one. Our players are up in arms about that penalty. They are adamant that the assistant put his flag up for an offside decision before the referee gave the penalty, and that is the way it looked. But the referee also said that he gave a penalty for Hegarty pushing somebody and I thought Hegarty just got his body between their lad and the ball, which happens all the time in a football match. I don't want to sit here with excuses. I am disappointed about that, for sure, but I am disappointed to come to Wembley and lose. "At the time of our penalty we had started to come into the game a bit and you can imagine what sort of lift that penalty may have given us, but it gave them a lift when their goalkeeper saved it. "In the second half, the game got very stretched. Both sets of players got really tired. I felt at the time we may hit them on the break and score just as much as they would us, although our goalkeeper has undoubtedly been the busier of the two. When we settled on the ball and kept it ourselves, we kept it quite well. Their goal gave them a fantastic boost so I didn't think the gamer was winnable at 1-0 down. For all our efforts, the game stretched then and it would have taken a superhuman effort to have come back from that. I would have liked to have regrouped and got at them a bit. But then the second goal comes after a bit of bad marking and at 2-0 it was pretty much all over. "All things considered, MK Dons are operating on a totally different level to us, with the stadium and the structure of the club, so I don't think there is any real downer from our point of view about being beaten by a team like that. "The players have given it all they have got, and you can't do any more than that, so I am pleased with them overall. I am bitterly disappointed but we gave a really good account of ourselves against the top team in the division."

Phil Joslin (Nottinghamshire)
The whistle blew and you counted to three to find out what the decision would be. Slow in thought and slow in mind, this ref is also totally blind. He missed the Fenton handball, but made up for it with the bizarre penalty decision against Town. It was just plain weak-willed. He could have disallowed the second goal too, but he followed the money in his decision making. The game did turn on his decisions, and he got the major one very wrong indeed. Wilfully wrong. It’s all his fault we didn’t lose on penalties: 3.699.

In space no-one remembers the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy: let’s take the money and run off with the league next year.