Altrincham FC manager Lee Sinnott will be giving us the inside track on the Robins’ return to the Conference. Here’s his latest column for Altrincham Today.
I was delighted to progress in the FA Trophy on Saturday with a 1-0 victory at Kidderminster, where we had lost 4-0 in the league in September.
The match was a bit reminiscent of the previous game when we won 2-0 at Eastleigh, as we didn’t use the ball that well, but you would have to give the players 10 out of 10 for the character shown and Stuart Coburn produced an inspired display of goalkeeping to keep the opposition out.
We are not passing the ball particularly well at the moment but that will come back and you just cannot fault the players’ commitment in recent games and no more so than in Saturday’s game, when we really had to dig in to earn a result.
The travelling support was great, particularly after we hadn’t covered ourselves in glory in our last game in a cup competition when we got turned over by Blyth Spartans in early November.
As in the last round against Macclesfield, the tie was settled by a single goal from Damian Reeves. It was the best piece of skill in the game, a real pinpoint finish, and Damian showed good awareness in realising that he had no support and executed a superb volley from a tightish angle to give the keeper no chance.
Tiredness has shown in the last two games and that is fully understandable after the tough playing schedule over the Christmas and New Year period
As well as Stuart’s heroics in goal, Kidderminster certainly produced a few wild shots and you wonder whether we might have used up all of our luck in that game or whether the luck is going to follow us? At the moment, it seems like the harder we work, the luckier we get and I’m a believer in that.
The pitch at Aggborough was very difficult and it took a lot out of the players’ legs. Tiredness has shown in the last two games and that is fully understandable after the tough playing schedule over the Christmas and New Year period.
My main focus at the moment is trying to protect a group of 17 players who are competing in a very tough league and therefore we trained on Tuesday night, rather than any of the 17 playing in the Cheshire Senior Cup game against Northwich Victoria… we needed this week to recover from the rigours of the last few weeks.
Monday’s FA Trophy draw, as expected, sends us on our travels again in the last 16 and we will take on Bath City from the Conference South a week on Saturday. In the meantime, we are looking forward to getting back into league action when we take on Torquay United at the J Davidson Stadium on Saturday at 3pm.
It’s a big game for both sides as Torquay are on the fringes of the play-offs and a win for us would take us level on points with them.
