Gavin Cowan: AFC Telford deserved more
AFC Telford manager Gavin Cowan said his team were not satisfied with a point from their 1-1 draw at Alfreton Town on Saturday – a game in which they played with 10 men for just under an hour.
It was the Bucks’ third game without defeat. But Cowan said: “It was disappointing, because we just didn’t get what we deserved. There were three points there on the table for us; it just wasn’t to happen for us today, but I can’t fault the lads on their performance.”
The Bucks could have been handicapped by the first-half dismissal of Top scorer Daniel Udoh was dismissed in the first half. He collected two yellow cards, the first of which the Bucks felt referee Andrew Kitchen had got wrong, and with no right of appeal he now misses the visit of Boston United next Saturday.
The Bucks responded with courage in abundance, and went on to lead early in the second half, through a first goal of the season from captain Shane Sutton.
Said Cowan: “We were excited, we felt Daniel had been harshly dealt with in the sending off, and that having scored twelve goals this season we owed him one, to get him out of a mess.”
Cowan even felt that the difference in manpower might have played to the Bucks advantage:
“How many times to you watch football and see how difficult it becomes when you play against ten men? I just felt as though our quality was that much better than Alfreton, and that because we’d gone down to ten men they psychologically felt that they could come out and that we’d then get more chances; if anything, I was even more in the front foot.”
The game finished 10-a-side, as Alfreton substitute Reece Styche also saw red, collecting two bookings in a 15-minute appearance before the hosts then equalised on 75 minutes, with perhaps a harshly awarded penalty against Henry Cowans for handball.
The Bucks recent performances have been much more in keeping with their early season form, but have yielded less than Cowan feels those performance have been worth:
“What’s missing is that we’re just not taking our chances. In the last three games we’ve completely dominated teams, we’ve had numerous chances. It’s not that we’re not creating anything; we’re creating, but were just not clinical enough.”
“The lads have got aspirations in that dressing room of what they want to do, but if they feel they want to continue hitting those targets we have to start turning some of those one-points into three points.”
