Eric Kinder on the northern area final victory
Youth boss Eric Kinder gave us his reaction to the Youth Alliance northern are final victory over Walsall on Wednesday afternoon.
“We had a great start,” he said.
“It’s good when a corner routine works out and we had worked on it time and time again before the game to get that one right. It wasn’t intended to go directly in, but I’m not bothered about that.”
“It’s obviously a positive if we can go one up after two minutes against a good side,” he added.
“I thought, after the league game, and I would have been the same, that they would have seen this as an easy task. I thought just for the first half they underestimated us and we got into them.
“But in all fairness to them they’re the best side in this division. To beat them in a northern final is a fantastic result.”
“The defence were brilliant today,” he told us. “I’m the first one to criticise them because they have been poor at times. But I thought that Dillon Morse was fantastic today, he’s blocked and made tackles that have kept us in the game.
“It gave us a good start getting a goal after two minutes. Then we got the penalty straight on half-time after we had taken a bit of a pounding for twenty minutes.
“We had started to panic and give it away, and we were hitting it long. I thought we looked tired coming into half-time, but to be fair to us we got that goal which was a blow to them. We knew that if we could come out of the first twenty minutes of the second half unscathed then we would have a great chance of going through.
“We had a bit more control in the second half, but they had some good players and every time they got it we were at panic stations. Our back four stayed strong, though.”
“When their goal went in ... all you can do is look at your watch,” he admitted. “We had five minutes added time, which was fair enough, and I looked at my watch and saw we had three and a half minutes to go. I couldn’t believe it.
“Then Alex [Salmon] went through and he is so good in one-on-one situations that you expect that to be that. Their goalkeeper did well and they started to break and got a corner. That was even worse to watch because I expected it to go in, but then we managed to break and Kyle [Dempsey] finished it well. We probably didn’t need the goal, because time was up, but it was nice to see it go in.”
“I target this competition every year and we usually get beat in the first round,” he admitted. “It’s a great feeling and everyone is really hyped up at the moment. They’ve done really well and I’m very pleased for them.
“Whether we thought we were going to win this or not, it’s time to make a decision on the future of the lads. It’s been held off and held off, and they want to know.
“It will be an individual thing with me and them today. If they want to take part in the national final then of course they can, but if they feel like they aren’t wanted then I fully understand.
“We might just have to go to that game with a different side. I hope not, and I’ll try my best to talk them into playing, because it is nice to have on their CV. We have to be fair and say that we won’t get seven or eight professionals out of this lot.
“Some are going and some are staying, so it won’t be a nice day. The ones that do come through start a new chapter of their lives. They will enjoy playing on Saturday because they know they are professionals now.
“We’ve got Macclesfield at home, and the lads who go home upset have to move on in their lives. What we’ve always done at Carlisle is that we’re here for them as long as they need us, in whatever role that might be. I’m going to enjoy this victory, because the other part of the job, when you have to let players go, isn’t so good.”
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