Wootton Bassett manager Dave Turner was extremely impressed with his side's 2-1 victory over Western League Premier Division Corsham Town in the Wiltshire Senior Cup on Saturday.

After almost a month without a fixture the Ryland's Way outfit could have been forgiven for lacking a little team cohesion but Turner insisted that, after a jittery opening, Bassett were the better side.

"I'm delighted for the lads. After four weeks without a game this is the perfect return," said Turner.

"We needed 20 minutes back together but after those 20 minutes I thought we had the unity back and we were the better team."

Bassett turned a one-goal deficit around to secure a semi-final berth and the final outcome could have been even more impressive had Steve Yeardley not missed a penalty five minutes from the end.

Turner highlighted goalscorers Scott Ward and Ryan Banks as the standout players but the Bassett gaffer also dealt out praise to Ritchie Carter and Paul Fisher.

"Ritchie was immense and Paul, who I just signed from Cricklade, was awesome," added Turner. "He thought that he was going to be on the bench right up until kickoff but he had to start because of illness. He came in and gave a solid 70 minutes. It was a terrific team performance all round."

Turner was astute enough to recognize that not everything ran like clockwork after such a significant lay off.

He added: "Their goal showed our rustiness, we were a little slow to react but that's just a consequence of not playing for a while."

With the inevitable fixture backlog due to generate some pretty unforgiving schedules towards the back end of the season, Turner knows the task ahead of his side is a fairly ominous one.

"We're eight games behind some people but it's not insurmountable," he added. "We'll just get our heads down and see where it takes us."

Credit: Sam Morshead
Last modified on Tuesday 17th December 2024 at 18:23