Marine boss Neil Young: “We can take lot from it” after FA Trophy loss

Marine AFC boss Neil Young said his side can “take a lot from it” after being beaten on penalties in the FA Trophy by higher league Bradford Park Avenue

Young spoke to Merseysportlive following his side’s 3-3 draw and the spot-kick agony.

“We can take a lot from the result,” he said.

“We haven’t won which is what we came here to do.

“But performance wise we’re a team two leagues lower, I think that’s our 26^th game of the season.

“I’ve got to be happy with the performance but and there’s a massive but, there’s things we’ve got to work on.”

Bradford PA showed early signs of their quality, knocking the ball around with intent, but it was Marine who carved out the opener.

Classic Neil Kengni won the ball off the last defender on the half-way line, rushed through one on one with Saltmer in the Bradford PA goal and calmy slotted it home.

“We’ve scored on the break, which we planned to with Kengni.

“We worked on getting out on that side, then we hit the post then we believe we should have had a penalty.”

Marine were left fuming when referee Aaron Bannister waved away shouts for a handball on the line, as a Mark Howarth header bounced off the post then onto the arm of the clearing Bradford PA defender.

In the space of two minutes the game turned completely on its head.

Back-to-back goals for Bradford PA by Docherty from the penalty spot and Johnson scrambling it home at the far post after a cross wasn’t dealt with, gave the side from Yorkshire a 2-1 lead at half time.

“We’ve dived in for a soft penalty, that’s the little things we don’t need to, and then we haven’t stopped the cross and let the lad get across us,” said Young.

A tactical change came from Young at half time saw James Barrigan replaced by David Raven, which allowed Marine to push forward more.

Marine deservedly equalised twice through two second half substitutes, Ryan Wignall and Ben Hughes, who scored with the last kick of the game.

Despite dominating the second half and scoring twice, Marine rued the goals they gave away to Bradford PA.

“We’ve given silly goals away, when you come to a place like this against quality opposition, you can’t give them chances because you get punished, and we got punished on three occasions” added Young.

“You’ve got to give credit to our lads, we’ve had a bit of a defensive nightmare, no centre halves here, obviously Dave Raven got here just before kick-off.

“But the lads have gone out there and put a shift in, gone on to the end, equalised late on in the game, so I can’t ask no more.”

Despite winning all three of their penalties shoot-outs so far this season, Marine’s run came to an end as loanee Ryan Stratulis, Howarth and Raven missed from the spot.

Luke Rawson, Oli Johnson and Isaac Marriott all scored in reply for Bradford PA.

Despite this, Young was pleased with his side’s overall performance.

“There’s a lot of learning to do, in terms of the game.

”It’s not shouting and screaming, we just spoke about doing the little things right, but we’re not far away.”

Marine focus their attention back to the league as the Mariners travel to sixth place, Leek Town, looking to continue their lead at the top of the table.