Manager gives his take on Warrington defeat
Grecians manager Paul Tisdale was disappointed to see his side knocked out of the FA Cup at the hands of Evo-Stik NPL Division One North side Warrington Town at Cantilever Park.The hosts came out of the blocks at high tempo and gained their lead as early as the sixth minute, when Craig Robinson got his head onto a corner in the near post.
It gave the Wire a lead to hold onto, and despite Exeter’s best efforts, the hosts battled through all of Exeter’s pressure to have their name in the hat for the next round.
City had 72% of the ball and 26 shots – including a David Noble shot that hit the bar and a ream of goal-line clearances – but the proverbial ‘magic’ of the FA Cup came through for the hosts.
“I feel bitterly disappointed that we’ve lost. It’s the FA Cup – Warrington got a goal very early and just hung on and parked the proverbial bus,” Paul said.
“I’m not ashamed of the way my team played – it’s hard to find any criticism of my players. That’s the FA Cup – we played pretty well and that’s just the way it is.
“I’m philosophical about it. I’m really disappointed we’ve lost and it doesn’t feel very nice. But that’s what this cup competition is all about and you have to be wary of it at all times.
“The game is about scoring more goals than the opposition, and they scored more than us tonight. That’s the only statistic that really matters.
“It’s a really big day for Warrington and I don’t want to take anything away from them. It’s not as if we played badly – we played well and they beat us, so well done to them.”
The hosts’ energy was clearly dwindling rapidly in the second period and the Exeter pressure cranked up a few notches.
Paul felt that the way the game was going, the equalising goal would surely come – but in a game of particularly fine margins, the Warrington defence were able to find the strength to equal anything that was thrown at them.
“I wasn’t anything other than pragmatic at half-time and said that if we continue to build our game as we are, I think we’ll score – and I thought we would score,” continued Tis.
“The way we played in the second half showed that we gave ourselves a chance to score, but we didn’t and that’s what really matters.
“Warrington put players in front of the goal and we just couldn’t break them down – we came close, but not close enough.”