Billy Rowley said his side are ‘limping over the line’ as the Glovers fell to a 3-0 defeat to top of the league York City. A(nother) tap in from Ollie Pearce, a Josh Stones strike and a stoppage time goal from Joe Grey consigned Yeovil to defeat, but was not enough to clinch the League for York as Rochdale grabbed a late winner at Braintree.
Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Josh Perkins, Rowley, who added Terrell Works to Delano McCoy-Splatt to the injury list, said his side didn’t do themselves ‘justice’.
“We’ve lost to potential champions today. You can see that they’re obviously a top team. Every single player – including all subs that came on – are incredible footballers. They can handle the ball, you can’t really get close to them, they just roll you and spin and twist and turn and [are] unbelievably comfortable in possession, really well coached. Some of their timings of movements and stuff are excellent and in order to match that, you have to be the very best version of yourself with all players available,” he said.
“I said it a couple of weeks ago, we’re sort of limping to the line at the minute. We’ve got another injury yesterday in training, Terrell felt his hamstring, had to be left out the squad. We’ve got two young academy boys on the bench. Even Dak, today he was told he could only play like 45, 60 minutes. So look, I’ve got the violin out here a little bit. We’ve been beaten by a far better team, far more equipped to win this division than we are. And rightfully 3-0 winners.
There was a moment before half time where Will Merry could have had a penalty and Rowley – albeit clutching at straws – felt a decision there could have made a difference.
“I think back to just before half-time – I’m clutching a little bit – but Will Merry goes in the box and I think if you’ve got the home advantage there, it’s probably a penalty. So you go in at 1-1 and it’s like, “okay, game on.” But instead, they go down the other end two minutes later and score, and you’re now 2-0 down and it’s game over really. So look, really disappointed. Fantastic place to play football. Didn’t do ourselves justice, but like I say, we’re kind of limping over the line at the minute.”
McCoy-Splatt joined the injury list during the game with a dislocated shoulder, meaning the Glovers boss introduced Jonathan Page earlier than planned, but Rowley though Page did well: “[I] thought he was really good when he came on. He’s a very intelligent footballer. I think him and Brett [McGavin]…[it’s a] shame they haven’t played more together. They’ve got two really good football brains and I think they’ve got a good relationship and understanding of how they see football. So [we] could probably play some nice stuff with them in the team and it’s not been a lot of minutes we’ve had them on the pitch together. Pagey got us in a couple of times, some decent balls over the top. It’s nice to see him back out there.”
That was Yeovil’s final away trip of the season, with next week’s match at Huish against Solihull the last in what has felt like a long season, and Rowley said he’s learned a lot.
Yeah, [I’m] pretty exhausted. It’s been really tough. Coming in in the winter time where it’s, 4°C outside [and the] pitches aren’t amazing, you’re trying to implement new ideas and new styles every day. We then hit a spell in the season where we were doing well in the Trophy and we were just playing every three or four days, so we didn’t have a chance to train loads. I’ve learned loads about the league, about what it takes to win at places like this. So it’s been an incredible experience for me and I’ll definitely be starting next season a lot stronger for it.”