Ian Perkins

It was a return to Huish Park after 35 days of postponements and away days and the Glovers showed they’re no slouches against promotion-chasers Rochdale. Here are Ian’s Five Conclusions…

We held our own against promotion hopefuls. Even the most optimistic of supporters must have gone into yesterday with massive apprehension going up against the – at the time – league leaders. Rochdale were in unbelievable form and had not dropped a single point from a winning position all season…until they came to Huish Park. We showed all the buzzwords yesterday: character, determination, spirit, camaraderie and played some good football before we were frustratingly reduced to 10 men.

Aaron Jarvis owes his teammates a Thatchers. When Jarvis replaced Campbell (who had one of his better games) the match was nicely poised, we’d enjoyed some decent chances and were holding our own but the first time we tossed the ball up for Jarvis to compete the worst happened. I thought it was sheer idiocy. We know how Jarvis competes and looks for contact but the way he led with his forearm, arm not looking at the ball gave the referee very little choice. I know he plays looking for contact and roughing up his opposing defenders, but I thought it was really poor and he let everyone down.

Finn Cousin Dawson stepped up. It’s often been a case of always the bridesmaid never the bride for FCD. He’s not one of the first choice centre backs and he’s been shoe-horned into the floating wingback role, so it was nice to see him get his flowers yesterday. His header to bring us back level was pinpoint perfection and he had a solid game in at right centre back. For me, he’s more dependable than Ferguson.

Mafico made another mark. What a find Dakarai Mafico is. (Hat tip to Declan Skura too) The Cardiff youngster was in centre midfield yesterday – or number 6 as the cool kids say – and he was fantastic. Brave on the ball, forward-thinking, confident to play through the lines. He did his defensive work and got us attacking too. We may only get to enjoy him this season, (although with Cardiff chasing promotion to the Championship they might let us have him back next season, right?) but the way he knits everything together between defence and attack is well beyond his years.

It was a great game of football. Billy Rowley described it as ‘cat and mouse’ whilst admitting modern football can be a bit boring (hear, hear) but I thought it was an entertaining game. We played some nice football and after 35 days since we were last at Huish Park, I could see an improvement and the style beginning to come through. In the moments when we played out from the back it looked more instinctive than it has done. We did the dogged stuff for the last 20 minutes and the players deserved their standing ovation from the supporters at full time.

We were up, we were down, we were level, we had it taken away at the end – life is a Rowley-coaster! Heartbreak and frustration, pride and disappointment, just a regular Wednesday night in the life of a Yeovil Town fan.

Ed Turnbull was in the away end with 124 other hardy Glovers, here are his Five Conclusions from the defeat to Boreham Wood.

The first hour showed we’ve got a long way to go

I know we went in at the break level, but that was a complete steal. I really enjoyed the way we used the ball at Telford and Altrincham, but in the first half against a stronger opposition we didn’t have any of the ball to use. And when we did get it our quality on the ball wasn’t good enough as we were suffocated by the Boreham Wood press. Right from the first whistle it felt like we were in for a long evening of bus-parking under the cosh, a still all-too-familiar feeling from 2025.

But the last half hour showed how far we’ve come

A goal and a man down away at a top 6 team in a game we’ve been on the back foot thus far, I think even the optimists amongst the hardy travelling contingent were struggling to see a way back into the game. But Billy Rowley did, it seemed. He decided attack was the best form of defence, and so it very nearly proved to be. This was epitomised by James Daly, who scored an excellent goal and very nearly topped it with a goal that would’ve induced comparisons to Gareth Bale’s against Barcelona in the Copa del Rey, albeit from the other side of the pitch (someone out there knows what I’m on about, right?!). It was very refreshing (and long overdue) to see a Yeovil side come out of their shells when up against it, rather than curling up into a ball of damage limitation with minimal success as we’ve become all too accustomed to.

We shot ourselves in the foot

The first 2 goals felt preventable, as did the red card (although I’m not sure I should complain about that, because it seemed to make us better!) – frustrating mistakes, made all the more annoying by the fact they ultimately undid all the aforementioned positives. I’ve generally been a fan of Kyle Ferguson, and still am, but I make that 3 key mistakes he’s made this season which have directly led to goals conceded (after Scunthorpe and Brackley away). Unfortunately for him, they’ve all come in games where we’ve lost by 1 goal.

Credit to Boreham Wood though

Yeovil made mistakes, but Boreham Wood were clinical enough to punish them. And then I have to (through gritted teeth) accept Aaron Henry’s free-kick was worthy of winning the game, especially one where Boreham Wood deserved to win on the balance of chances, territory, possession and probably just about every other metric. How Abdul Abdulmalik isn’t playing in a higher league I am now even more perplexed than I was after the reverse fixture back in October. Mind you, I’m equally perplexed by how the atmosphere at a club pushing for promotion to the EFL can be so non-existent!

We can hold our heads high after that

Maybe it says something about the home support too (sorry, I’ll stop with the needless digs now), but the fact the team that had just conceded a stoppage time winner was the team whose fans clapped them for longer after the full time whistle was a telling reflection of the pride I and many Yeovil fans felt after witnessing that display once we went down to ten. That said, football’s about picking up points not being proud of how you lose. It’s not going to get easier when we welcome table-topping Rochdale 65-and-a-bit hours after the end of this match, and I worry how our smallish squad will cope with the upcoming onslaught of fixtures, but at least I feel we’ve got a team that can give us plenty of excitement (and more importantly enough points to steer clear of danger) along the Rowleycoaster that the next 3 months will be.