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Next Game: Banbury Away On Friday March 29th Kick-Off 3.00pm

Saturday, October 02, 2021

Gowling 'Really Pleased' To Progress In Cup

Speaking after this afternoon's 2-0 victory in the FA Cup at Merstham, Hereford manager Josh Gowling said he was really pleased to progress in the competition.

"It backs up the win on Tuesday night so really pleased," he said.

"Tough conditions, I think they (Merstham) did well in spells.

"They put their bodies on the line, they stopped things.

"I think sometimes when you go into the game and you cradle up opportunities and not scoring you can then be caught on the break.

"But eventually we got the goal which settled us down a little bit and then came out second half and finished the game off which is pleasing.

"We dropped Maziar in as a deep line midfielder and Harry into 10 as we felt those were two areas we could exploit and we did for most of the game.

"I thought Maziar was man of the match today, I thought he was strong. He did the other side of the game that he's probably not done this season as yet which is the dirty stuff, picking up second balls from the centre-halves, putting his foot in, latching onto things. 

"He did that really well which gives a platform to build off so I was really pleased."

Keith Hall, who interviewed Gowling, said his man of the match was Harry Pinchard.

"Are you trying to say your man of the match is better than my man of the match? 

"H (Pinchard) was involved in the first goal and then that finish (for the second goal).

"I was about to shout at him because we had done too many of them throughout the game, hitting balls over the bar, but his was a great finish.

"I spoke to the referee at the end of the game and he said that if they had put a bit more of a moaning effort into the game then he might have thought about calling it off twenty minutes into the second half. The middle of the pitch you could see when players were running with the ball was difficult. 

"We just looked they leave their full backs one v one so we wanted to get loads of switches of play and get Harry running in behind in those little pockets and it worked really well today."

Gowling could only name six subs including two from the under 18's and the club's therapist for the game.

"We are not scraping the bottom of the barrel, no we are not.

"Obviously we didn't want to make too many changes coming into today but with Brandon and Patric picking up a little niggle as well, we wanted to play Nykah at Lymington but we didn't so it's given us an opportunity to look at him today.

"We recruit versatile players so although we drafted in some youth team players we had still got Ryan, Fozzy and Richie on the bench who could come on and play in multiple positions. So as long as we've got that covered then we're fine.

"It would be nice to get a home tie that would be good. We've had two away now but I'm not fussed.

"I think the fans came, it's a long way to come, they cheered and the lads gave them a good clap at the end.

"Our support is brilliant whether there's three or twenty or one hundred. They are always loud, noisy and they are cheering us on so really pleased they could come and see us away from home."

You can listen to the interview here.