Nicky Hunt has said that Accrington more than deserved the victory over Cheltenham owing to the start we made in the game, and the way we defended the second period.
Defender Hunt was very pleased with how we got out of the traps in the first half to take the two goal lead, but then obviously, whilst be disappointed that we didn’t keep a clean sheet, he felt our defensive showing in the second half was very good indeed and on balance we definitely deserved the three points on the day.
‘We won every first header, the knockdowns, put the ball into the channel and held it up. It was a perfect away performance from us.’
Hunt says that once we got the first goal, as everybody was making a concerted effort to put a smile on the gaffers’ face and get us a quick start in the game, it really did help everyone settle down and gave us that confidence boost to kick on further in the half and try and double our advantage, which we obviously managed to do, so coming out second half knowing Cheltenham would throw everything at us, the players had the belief that they could hold.
‘We knew we had something to hold on to, and that they would have to come out at us. Getting the second when we did killed the game a little bit.’
He also feels that despite Cheltenham coming out with a plan to bombard us, scoring in the way we did, just after they had hit the bar, would’ve been a good mental knock in our favour as whilst they had the effort in the second period, maybe doubt had crept in when it came to belief.
‘It was huge mentally. We were going in 2-0 up and they’ve going in thinking that it should be 1-1. They obviously got a rollocking from their manager and we knew that they would have a 15-20 minute spell, which they did, and it was a bit of an onslaught but as a whole we defended really well.’
With the game pushing us up to 18th, especially in light of the Torquay v Northampton game being called off, Hunt also said it served as a huge boost for the players at the final whistle, but it was something they were aware of ahead of the game and the gaffer dangled it as motivation for them.
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