Managers love it when a substitution pays off, don’t they? 

What a first touch!  

I just told him to relax, enjoy himself and get me a goal if he could – that was the last thing I asked. 

What a finish from him though, eh? 

I felt sorry for him the past couple of weeks because we sent him on during the second leg at Chertsey and by his own admission he was like a rabbit in headlights. 

We’ve held him back a bit since then. 

What did you make of your performance? 

We didn’t play well for the first hour or so. 

Once we got our noses in front, I think we managed the game very well. 

You restricted Scott McGowan 

We know how much of a danger he can be. 

He’s the biggest threat they have, and Brandon [Barski] got booked early before making a silly challenge on him just before half-time. 

We were thinking ‘Should we bring him off?’ 

Instead we asked Kieron [Kenny] to do that job in the second-half and he did it well to be fair. 

Were you surprised by how scrappy the game was, particularly in the first-half? 

A little. 

It’s a semi-final, and it’s a derby. We know how the fans feel about it. 

We said to the lads to think of it as an FA Vase game because it’s a competition we’d done well in. 

With that in mind, we had to tell them that’s the worst we’d played in the FA Vase this season when they came in at half-time! 

What else were you unhappy with in the opening period? 

We never won a second-ball.  

We were too far away from their guys when they took possession and the things that we did were an after-thought. 

They just passed it around us. 

We chased the ball, and worked hard, but we didn’t need to. 

How disruptive was it to be without Rob Doran and Brian Matthews? 

It didn’t help us at all. 

Joel [Brownhill] hasn’t played there for us this season even though I signed him as a centre forward. 

He got hold of the ball better as the game unfolded. 

It’s something that we need to resolve though because Rob is likely to be missing for the rest of the season with that shoulder injury. 

What about Matty Clarke? He’s delivered another performance on a big occasion 

He’s a Northwich kid, isn’t he? He feels it. 

He’s a big-game player and there aren’t too many of those around. 

If you can call on two or three of those in your squad, you’re in a healthy position. 

He would probably say he’d have wanted to play more often but he’s been struggling with an injury for a while. 

There’s a chance now to finish the season by winning a trophy. How important is that? 

I said it before the game didn’t I? This match became more important after we lost to Chertsey. 

We can’t win the FA Vase now, but we can win this competition. 

A fortnight ago, the semi-final was the biggest game that we had left but that’s gone. 

Since the fans took over the club, it hasn’t won a trophy. 

They’ve a cup final to look forward to, and that can only be a good thing.