BBC Somerset’s Jack Killah caught up with Yeovil Town manager Billy Rowley following Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Boreham Wood. Despite securing a commendable point against the division’s unbeaten side, Rowley made it abundantly clear that his ambitions for the Glovers stretch far beyond settling for a draw.
Reflecting on the 90 minutes of football, Rowley admitted that it was a spectacle for the spectators. “I thought it was a good game, obviously that a neutral would have enjoyed that, I’m sure,” he told Killah. However, as a manager striving for relentless perfection, he noted that he and his staff would dissect the performance closely. “Luke [Garrard], like myself, will pick the bones out of that game when you watch it back and there’s just I guess it depends on on what we want to be here as a team and as a club. And for me, like I keep saying to the lads, like we want to we just want to be better than that every week. We want to improve”.
The Glovers wen’t 1-0 down, then 2-1 up and still had chances to win the game outright before the visitor’s late equaliser. “I don’t necessarily draw the result back to the penalty incident,” Rowley explained. “I think back to in the first five minutes when we didn’t do A, B and C correct and then in the 32nd when we didn’t do this, this and this. And I just I look at football like a domino effect, really, like you earn the result through every minute of the game”.
Despite that, he was full of praise for his squad’s resilience: “I cannot fault one second the lads’ effort. I thought we were superb in terms of our application to to run in, to to fighting for duels, to to defending our box, all that kind of stuff”.
Sitting comfortably in fifth place Yeovil have come a long way since Rowley took the reins roughly a year ago. While acknowledging how far the club has progressed from what he described as a “very dark place,” Rowley’s high standards mean he wants more from his group.
“I’m obviously happy to stand here in fifth… and play in front of a great set of supporters and in a fantastic stadium, but I just want more. I want more, I want us to to win games like this, I want us to be higher in the league and I want us to score more goals”.
“It’s very easy for me to say these things, when you’re in the dugout with a warm coat on, it’s easy to play the game like you’re Harry Kane, but it’s not that easy,” he candidly stated. “When the boys are defending for long spells and you’re having to shuffle across the pitch and deal with four switches and release onto a press, then you regain the ball back and you’re a little bit tired. But our mindset has to flip from survival to dominance and keeping possession and getting our bodies there to win a free kick or stay on the ball to shake someone off your back”.
On debutant goalkeeper Mason Terry, Rowley was impressed with how he handled his sudden introduction to the side. “Yeah, really good, really good,” Rowley said. “He literally trained once with us for a Friday session which only lasts 45 minutes to an hour. He sat in the car for 5 hours… to get up to us, so fair play to him. I thought he was really commanding, I thought his communication was good, but obviously the more he plays with us and the more he trains with us he’ll learn about how we play and it will improve his performances”.
The main talking point of the post-match reaction, however was around the late penalty miss that could have snatched all three points. Rowley leaped to the defence of young Mason Obeng and encouraged Glovers fans to do the same;
“When you’re missing a penalty with a few minutes on the clock, it hurts a little bit,” Rowley admitted. “I want us as a club and supporters to not jump on the bandwagon of ganging up on Mason Obeng for that. You know, he’s a young lad, he’s a great great lad… If it goes in the top corner, everybody’s singing his name and it’s a great sub. These things happen in football. He was brave enough to grab the ball and take it… he’s obviously lost his footing and that is what it is—no blame on Mase whatsoever”.
“I watch him shoot every day in training and his talent is incredible. So yeah, we’ll stick behind him with that and obviously appreciate the fans who will understand that nobody means to do these things, it’s just part of the game.”