Following the Glovers’ 1-1 draw with Aldershot on Good Friday, Mark Cooper hailed the improvement from the Tuesday night defeat to Gateshead.
Speaking post match to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins, he thought his side were denied a late penalty but that more than just a point was deserved.
“I thought from start to finish we were outstanding, yeah of course we made some mistakes, committed, one mistake from us from the corner you know you you’re relying on people to do their jobs and and we let somebody get free header in the Box.
But, you take that out – of course at the end we’re pushing bodies forward and they have a couple of counter attacks – but their players were going down like flies and we kept going, we kept going we kept going and that’s an horrendous decision from the referee at the end it’s a blatant penalty, everybody in the stadium sees it and he panicked. I think he thinks I can’t give that that late in the game.”
“it’s a great performance, a great following, nice to see the prospective owner and his friend in there leading the chants and, yeah great following.”
Callum Harriott returned to the side to grab a late equaliser, in a game which saw plenty of changes including seeing Jordan Maguire-Drew in an unfamiliar role centrally.
We played Jordan McGuire-Drew in midfield today him and him and the other midfield players were really good I thought, some good performances and if we play like that until to the end of the season we have a chance (of staying up)”
“When you get the fans behind you, you see the response you get from the players and it’s so productive when they’re like that.”
Yeovil did fall 1-0 behind early in the second half, but Cooper was pleased that his side were able to get back into the game.
“When confidence is low it’s easy to cave in when you go one or down but I thought there was some real top performances today and I thought we deserve to win the game. ”
In the dying embers of the game, Aldershot had the chance to get all three points after Chiori Johnson was adjudicated to have fouled a Shots’ attacker gifting the hosts a penalty – which they would blaze over the bar. The decision was a contentious one from referee James Durkin.
“It’s difficult to see for me but I thought he looked to me like he diverted the ball in a different direction but referee couldn’t wait could he? When it was at the other end he was never going to give it.”
“We should have won the whole day felt like we were here, everybody was here and we were going to, I spoke to the players before the game, no matter what’s going on, all the outside noise it’s just about going back to when you were seven or eight years old in the playground, it’s not about we have to win and we’re going to get the club around again it’s about enjoying go and enjoying your football and we tried to take the pressure off them and I thought they were magnificent.”
Attention turns to another huge game against Dorking, the third of three against relegation rivals, and Cooper believes that his side are still in the fight to survive.
“We’ve got to keep going if we win on Monday then we could be two points and you know if we get to the last game who knows we’ve got games obviously we’ve got a really difficult one against Wrexham but the others are winnable.”
“It was a great performance, that’s what I’m I saw what we’re asking for, a great spirit, we know where we’re short and we can’t affect that now because we can’t do anything about it but as long as we get that that commitment we’re fine… we’ve got a real core group of players that want to scrap or want to fight for everything and we’re going to need that in the last five games.”