Abbo and Tommo on FA Cup Victory
Hinckley AFC’s management team Carl Abbott and Paul Tomlinson reflected on the FA Cup First Qualifying Round victory over Redditch United as ‘a fantastic day for the club.’
AFC overcame a 62 place deficit in league positions to beat their Southern Premier League opponents thanks to first half goals from Marco Adaggio and Sean Williams.
But Assistant Manager Tomlinson said that despite the result, his side ‘unnecessarily’ put pressure on themselves because of their sloppy ball retention. He said: ‘It’s a fantastic day for the club, as well as the players. We’ve dug deep today, and at times we have put ourselves under a lot of pressure unnecessarily by not looking after the ball in certain areas of the park.
‘But we could have won that game by four or five today. We had some really good chances there to put the game out of reach, but as a spectacle I don’t know what that was like as it was like a basketball game in the end!
‘It was back and forth, back and forth, and I think if we could have taken more care of it we could have seen the game out a little bit more comfortably than we did.
‘But credit to each and every one of those lads in there today, we set up a certain way first half to negate the way they try and play a little bit and make the game a little bit more narrow for us, and it worked.
‘We went 2-1 in front and we’ve held on to that second half. As I said, it was a fantastic effort from the boys and the football club in general.’
Hinckley made a slight tactical switch in the game, playing three central midfielders to negate the threat posed by their higher level opposition. Abbott explained the thinking behind the change in formation.
‘We said to the players before we went out that football is a funny thing; you can score a goal from brilliance or a mistake, misfortune or a bit of fortune however you want to look at it.
‘We had a game plan, but it could have been out of the window after one minute. All you can do it set up.
‘We take our responsibility to set the team up, and hope that the plan works. We felt that they had some real ability in the middle of midfield and they play a three that match us.
‘They’ve a really tremendous footballer in Jamie Osbourne in there who will dictate the game, so we thought we’d crowd it out and kill all the space in there, spoil the game a little bit in the first half.
‘I didn’t anticipate we’d go in (at half time) winning the game, maybe to stay in the game, but we got a couple of goals on the break and didn’t really allow them to breathe.
‘I think we saw in the second half, when we opened out, that we did that because they’re dangerous when they have possession.
‘But we felt we could change the game up and introduce width and pace, to effect and hurt them by changing it later in the game. The plan was to go and get goals, but we’ve ended up doing it to try and get back in their half.
‘When it works you’re a genius, when it doesn’t you look stupid! I think if they’d have scored a couple of goals in the first half, people would have scratched their heads and maybe we’d have been criticised, but it’s worked and that’s all you can hope for.’
