Marcus Dibble’s 93rd minute equaliser sparked wild celebrations at The Step Places Stadium on Saturday as West captured a deserved but unlikely league point.
However, despite managing a slight smile at his team’s courageous late efforts, West boss Chris Rowley was in no mood to celebrate.
Speaking following our hugely entertaining 4-4 draw versus Sandbach United, Chris said: “Some will say it feels like a win, but for me if you’re scoring four goals at home you shouldn’t be leaving with anything other than three points. Everyone in the team is the same – we’re disappointed. We’ve gone out and scored four goals and haven’t won the game.”
In a topsy-turvy game, West took the lead through Ben Elliot in the 17th minute. Sandbach then equalised straight away and followed that with a second to lead at half-time. West then equalised through a fine Sam Heathcote free-kick midway through the second half before conceding almost straight away once again to go 3-2 behind.
Chris said: “We allowed Sandbach their goals, they were all given to them by us. We switched off and should be better defensively than we were.”
He added: “It’s something that we need to talk about [complacency] and we’ve said that we need to be more switched on after we score. It happened against Stockport straight from kick-off, so we need to be sure and aware of that imminent threat.”
Chris then went onto praise his team for their dramatic come-back and never-say-die attitude. He said: “I praise the lads for what they done today, they stuck at their task and battled to the end and they deservedly got us a point”
He added: “It shows the drive and desire from the team. We went 4-2 down and a lot of teams would’ve shut up shop and moved on to the next game, but this group of lads don’t do that. We changed the shape to go all out and risk conceding more; Billy [Matthews] came on and was outstanding, he was direct and gave us that drive, and the players got what they deserved.”
In his programme notes Chris, a Sandbach resident, said he wanted to be the only one going back down the M6 with a smile. So, did he?
He said: “It I went back home with nothing from that game I’d have been massively disappointed, so it was a slight smile!”
