Ben Barrett

Yeovil Town manager Billy Rowley said his players were “not ready for the battle” as they were outplayed by an Aldershot Town side which started the match below them in the table at Huish Park on Tuesday night.

The Glovers fell behind to a goal from full-back Olly Scott after just seven minutes before pulling level through a stunning strike from on loan attacker Terrell Works with their only real effort on goal all game after 26 minutes, before Sean Patton won it for the visitors in the second half.

The 2-1 defeat pushes Yeovil down to 18th in the National League Premier Division table with a long trip to promotion-chasing Carlisle United coming up at the weekend.

Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Ian Randall after the game, Rowley said: “They were dangerous, but when you let them be dangerous, they’re even more so. My criticism of our players tonight is we weren’t ready for the battle. We knew it was going to be tough from a physical and mental side, and we didn’t match it. I thought we were quite weak in duels. I felt like we lacked a little bit of leadership on the pitch all round. You are playing in front of a brilliant support on a lovely night for football, and you’re just happy to lose your duels. I can’t stand that, I can’t stand it. Credit to Aldershot, they were miles better than us tonight, they were technically better and the game was just gritty and it was roll-your-sleeves-up time, and we didn’t do it.

“Even after Terrell scored, I thought we took our foot off the gas again and let them get their rhythm. They are quite a fluid, expansive team that are quite open with how they roam around the pitch. Like I said, it was roll your sleeves up, deal with your man, fight for the badge, and we didn’t do it. We didn’t do it today. We got beat up.“

Have your say on the performance – vote in our post-match poll – HERE

Aldershot, who leap-frogged the Glovers in to 14th place in the table with the three points, set the tone early with player-coach James Henry firing wide in the opening seconds of the game and never stopped pressing their hosts. It was therefore little surprise to any of the more than 3,000 supporters inside Huish Park when they took the lead through Scott’s strike.

Rowley said: “I’m a huge believer in the importance of the first five minutes of a game, it sets your tone, it sets your tempo. You need to understand how aggressive the opposition are pressing you or if they’re not. We had no feel for the game, even in the first ten minutes.

“I’m really mindful of saying these things because the referees have a tough job and they’re, you know, refereeing a game in front of 3,000 people and it’s fast and it’s hard to get everything right, but in the first two minutes, we had a blatant push in Dak(ari Mafico)’s back which resulted in five, six minutes of chaos with two or three of their corners, and that could have been just cleared up with a blatant foul on our player.

“But I look at the clock, ten minutes have gone, we haven’t been in their half and I think that goes down to a feel of the game. I said about leadership on the pitch all throughout the side, understanding that we haven’t been in their half and we’re on the tilt and we need to get up and we need to be more solid. We just didn’t do any of that stuff, we didn’t do basics at all.“

Next up Yeovil face an almost 700-mile round trip to face a Carlisle United sat third in the division and without a midweek match with Rowley calling on his players to learn from a reality check performance.

He said: “I just went in the changing room and  I heard a couple of the boys saying the same things that I’m saying. They know it’s one of those games. I thought our support was excellent today and it’s just a shame that we didn’t use that energy on the pitch. It felt like we were the away team. The boys are equally as frustrated as me, but we’ve all got to learn from this and we’ve got to be better.“

Dakarai Mafico and Finn Cousin-Dawson have been awarded places in teams of the week.

Both the Non League Paper and Enterprise give the Cardiff loanee a spot in their mythical line ups whilst FC-D also gets a place in the official sponsor’s XI in the heart of the defence.

Rumours that Mani Dieseruvwe misses out because he’s still in FC-Ds back pocket are yet to be confirmed.

Congrats, Dak and Finn!

The Football Association have confirmed a three match ban for Aaron Jarvis.

The striker had only been on the pitch for a short time before a coming together between Jarvis’ forearm Rochdale defender Kyren Gorden’ neck resulted in a straight red card from Niall Smith.

After the game, manager Billy Rowley said 

“I have to be honest, I’ve not seen it back, so I’m going to have to go and watch that back before I can comment. In terms of how we’ve deal with that internally, I’ll always deal with that with the lads in the dressing room and the club.

But naturally, as well as everybody that cares about this football club, I’m, I’m frustrated by it, I’m annoyed by it, but I can’t really, I can’t really say much more until I see it.”

The charge goes down as Violent Conduct which carries a standard three-match ban.

Jarvis will he unavailable for the games against Aldershot (Tues 17th), Carlisle (Sat 21st) and Sutton (Weds 25th) becoming available again for the trip to Southport in the FA Trophy on Saturday 28th February.

As an aside, the FA also confirmed to the Gloverscast that captain Jake Wannell is on nine yellow cards, one more and he’ll serve a two match suspension.

Yeovil Town manager Billy Rowley has said that if his team continue to put in performances like Saturday’s then Glovers fans will soon see good times at Huish Park.

For the first time this season, Yeovil secured a point from a losing position, whilst at the same time, ensuring that Rochdale dropped point from a winning position, also for the first time.

Speaking to BBC Radio Somerset’s Jack Killah after the game he said that he was proud of his side.

“We went down to ten men for the second game in a row, which has obviously infuriated me and some of the boys, but look, that’s part of football.

So, we had to deal with it, we had to adapt, and I’m really proud of the boys that were on the pitch. You saw boys pulling up with cramp, they were trying to galvanise each other, they were sticking together, and it’s just everything you want to see in the team. So I’m really proud of the lads to hang on against a team that I’ve just been told haven’t given up a leading position all season.

It’s a great header from Finn, and then we actually played some decent enough football, I thought Dak [Mafico] and Brett [McGavin] really controlled the game in some of our build-up, I thought they were really brave and took the ball well. I thought Macca was very clever, and Troy was very clever with how they were trying to like create attacks for us.

But look, putting the whiteboard away, it was just about heart and endeavor when we went down to ten, sadly for the second game in a row, and we’ve hung on.”

The game took a dramatic turn when Aaron Jarvis was shown a straight red card barely ten minutes after coming on to the pitch, leaving the Glovers with just ten men for the final 20 minutes. The gaffer said that he is frustrated to have lost a player for the second game running.

“I have to be honest, I’ve not seen it back, so I’m going to have to go and watch that back before I can comment. In terms of how we’ve deal with that internally, I’ll always deal with that with the lads in the dressing room and the club.

But naturally, as well as everybody that cares about this football club, I’m, I’m frustrated by it, I’m annoyed by it, but I can’t really, I can’t really say much more until I see it.”

Yeovil’s goal came from Finn Cousin-Dawson, who’s looping header drew the Glovers back level minutes after going behind.

[it’s a] great header, great loopy header. It was almost perfect, really. I think if you power that header, the goalie’s going to save it.

It’s a great header, but it was probably a bit lucky. But it’s a great goal, and yeah, it gave us, it gave us a bit of confidence and it’s something that I obviously mentioned in my post-match after Boreham Wood. I want the lads, I really want the lads to play with more bravery and courage, and I felt like we did that today. I felt like we were happy to, to take the ball, felt like some of Jed’s bravery and his starting position was really good, and I appreciate that modern football is a little bit, it’s cat and mouse at times and it can be quite boring, but I can promise our fans that we’re always looking to score goals.

Like, we’re always looking to score goals, and that’s sometimes dependent on how much the opposition press or give us space in certain areas. But you know, we’re, we’re definitely a work in progress still. I saw loads of positives today, and and I think that, you know, the supporters, if they stay behind us and they support us like they did today, they’re going to see some good times here.

On Declan Skura’s second half debut, he said;

“He had to defend his box and and, you know, I know of Dec, I actually coached some players, I think I might have coached Dec when he was about 12 years old, when I used to work at an academy, and we bumped into each other one or two times, and then I’ve obviously followed his career, and the guys that I know at Wycombe are convinced that he’s a, he’s a football league player. I think you can see that, I like everything about him, his composure, his stature, the way he stays on the ball and defends, and he hasn’t really played much football because of injuries this season, but you know, we have 17 left, he’s obviously eligible for the Trophy as well, which is going to be massive for us, and I think, I think after three, four, five games, we’re going to see, you know, an incredible defender in this shirt.

Joy [Mukena] came in from Crawley a few weeks ago, he’d had a couple of hamstring injuries himself, he was, he probably shouldn’t have been playing as much as I’ve needed to use him, but due to injuries and because Joy’s played so well, I’ve probably picked him more times than I should have.

So he was really fatigued after Boreham Wood, he probably shouldn’t have started that game, but he dug in deep and the plan was today always to play 45 each.”

Injuries are starting to play a part for the side with Josh Tobin expected to have an elongated spell out of the side, but Billy Rowley said that there will be players back in contention soon.

“I’ve got to give a massive shout actually to Josh Tobin, who came in on loan, and I think Josh is, is one of the most unlucky players with his injuries ever. He got a knock on his ankle at Altrincham, and I think he’s basically out for the season now.

So, it was great timing that we got Dec, we worked really hard to get that sorted. We didn’t know Josh was going to be out for as long as he was, so that leaves us a body short. John Page managed to sit on the bench today, probably shouldn’t have, but he will be back for Tuesday if not definitely Saturday. Whitts is very close to full training, Jarvs was obviously back until today, so we’re going to be okay.”