Weymouth robbery kicks Daish in the teeth

Gravesend & Northfleet boss Liam Daish was pleased with his players’ performance, despite Weymouth grabbing a 3-1 win at Stonebridge Road tonight, writes Stephen McCartney.

The Fleet dominated the entire first half but all they had to show for their efforts was Luke Moore’s sixth goal of the season after 35 minutes.

The eighteen-year-old striker glanced home a cross from Charlie MacDonald during a one-sided opening period.

But an inspired half-time double substitution from Weymouth boss Jason Tindall had the desired effect as substitute, Weymouth born James Coutts scored a brace and Tony James netting a late penalty - all against the run of play.

Gravesend & Northfleet slipped out of the Nationwide Conference play-off places to sixth following their tenth league defeat of the season, but Daish admitted his side needed a second goal to kill off Weymouth.

“I think it was probably the best 45 minutes I’ve seen from us,” he told www.kentishfootball.co.uk afterwards.

“We controlled the game, everyone contributed, probably needed that second goal but it didn’t come.

“I’d like to see the video for the first goal, looked well offside for me but that goes against you.

“We’re at home, you want to push forward, we just couldn’t get that second goal - sometimes it happens like that.”

A stunned Daish couldn’t fault any of his players on a night when Weymouth took their few chances.

“I can’t fault the lads. I thought they were different class,” he said. “Everyone has contributed, even right to the end, we were still brave on the ball.

“We still gave quality, we didn’t just dismiss it. We still tried to get on it and do the right thing and sometimes football kicks you in the teeth a little bit and I feel a bit like that tonight and the lads do in there as well.”

Daish believes his side can still claim a play-off berth at the end of their excellent campaign.

“Nothings changed,” he said. “There’s plenty of twists and turns yet. I thought Saturday, did we really deserve all three points (at Kidderminster)? But we got them.

“Today I thought we did enough to get three points, apart from maybe (scoring) that second goal.

“A far better performance today than it was Saturday. We really took the game by the scruff of the neck and as I said, sometimes you don’t get what you deserve.

“But there’s twelve games still to play, there’s a lot of twists and turns and we’ve got to take it on the chin really.”

Fleet are without a game at the weekend but travel to Stafford Rangers next Tuesday night.

After four games on the road, playing Oxford United, Woking, Northwich Victoria and Kidderminster Harriers, the Fleet clocked a massive 1070 miles in the process.

“The lads have worked very hard,” Praised Daish. “We’ve done a lot of miles and we’ll do something over the weekend because we’ve got a very important game on Tuesday.

“Stafford’s a massive game, there all massive games. If we can play like that we’re quite capable of getting three points at Stafford and this is all forgotten, just like Northwich was forgotten when we got all three points at Kidderminster.”

Visit Gravesend & Northfleet’s website: www.gnfc.co.uk