Allan Hale BOD

Elgin City manager Allan Hale assesses his team’s SPFL Trust Trophy win over Banks o’ Dee

Transcript

00:00I knew, we spoke to the players before the game, how Banks and Eaddy would approach the game.

00:04I saw a lot of them, I know a lot of their players, their team, their set-up, how they play.

00:10I saw how they approached the game, it was no surprise. I thought they were really positive.

00:15I knew they would come here without any fear. They've got a lot of good players on their team.

00:19First half, you've got to give them a lot of credit. I thought first half they were really aggressive,

00:25really intense, stopped us getting into any sort of rhythm with the ball.

00:30Obviously we're contesting a strong wind, but that's no excuse. We've got to find the opportunities.

00:37I just felt first half for us, we did have opportunities to go and break lines.

00:41We had plenty of opportunities where our centre-backs could step into midfield with the ball.

00:46I just thought we were really passive in the first half. I thought we played with no intensity,

00:50we played with no aggression. We didn't get any foothold of the game.

00:53I thought when we did show flurries of trying to build up any positive momentum,

00:59we were just really slow and laboured in our movement, in terms of our ability to pass the ball,

01:05pass the ball to any purpose. Then we give away a gift of a goal.

01:10It's horrendous play, there's no other way to describe it.

01:15It's tippy-tappy stuff that we should really have the nice to know that we're being pressed aggressively.

01:21It's trying to play over the press and play into areas where the free man is.

01:25We've made an error there, the players were weak so we couldn't preach about that.

01:29The pleasing thing for me was the reaction in the second half, which was exactly what we asked of them.

01:34In the second half you got to see the elgin that we're trying to instil in this team,

01:39which was a team that was aggressive, that went after the ball in numbers, that moved the ball at pace.

01:44We got combinations, we got people then running in behind and it opened the game up.

01:48When people started stretching in behind, it opened up the space to Russell.

01:52When Russell got on the half-turn, I thought the movement in front of him was really good.

01:57We started to create some openings and put them under a little bit of pressure.

02:01We asked questions of them in terms of how they could respond to it.

02:04We get the penalty, we quickly get a second goal.

02:07I thought from that point our game management was really good.

02:09I thought we managed the game really well.

02:12For us, winning breeds confidence.

02:16It doesn't matter if it's a friendly game, a cup game or a league game.

02:21Every game matters and it's about winning it.

02:25I was objective before the game. Was it perfect? Absolutely not.

02:28Were there good things that the Cow got behind in the second half? Absolutely.

02:32The atmosphere started to come into the ground.

02:34You could hear a pin drop in the place in the first half.

02:37That's down to our performance, not giving the supporters anything to get behind.

02:40We managed to win the game, which was our objective before the game.