Interview With U23s Manager Joe Garside
Evan Seaman caught up with Ilkley Town U23s manager Joe Garside about his thoughts on Monday night’s 2-2 draw against RIASA.
Well done on a hard-earned point. What do you make of the performance?
All things considered it was a good performance. We dominated the game, having most of possession and a large number of chances, we just struggled converting our opportunities. Given it was our first game of the season me and Jamie were pleased with the performance and took a lot of positives from it.
How pleasing was it to see Kevin Gonzalez come back and score a brace?
It’s great that Kev is back on the pitch getting back up to speed, and back amongst the goals. His 2nd goal was great to see and was a real reward for his hard work off the ball.
Do you think the team responded well in the second half after trailing at the break?
The reaction after half term was the most pleasing aspect for me. We all agreed at half time that the first half wasn’t to the high standards we expect of ourselves, so to come out 2nd half and go ahead in the game was a huge positive. We didn’t necessarily play better football, but we increased our intensity both on and off the ball and were more clinical in front of goal.
Do you think the red card impacted the game at all?
It was a strange one really as RIASA seemed to take more of a foothold in the game after they went down to 10 men, I think they felt they had nothing to lose by going for it and maybe we should have tried to kill the game off instead of sitting back.
Were you slightly disappointed not to see the game out after being in such a good position?
Very disappointed to be honest. This is something we have certainly become better at as a club in the last couple of years, however we couldn’t quite finish it off this time. It is a young squad, and we are constantly learning, tonight will be a night that we might refer back to all season to make sure we don’t allow that to happen again.
What do you think will you be looking to work on for the next game?
With it being such a new and young squad, we will learn so much from each game. The biggest lesson from tonight is obviously developing our ability to finish games once we gain the lead. Next week is another really tough test away at Farsley Celtic where we’ll have to be bang on it to go and get a result.