Q & A with David Hockaday
Forest Green boss Dave Hockaday was understandably delighted with his side’s showing on Tuesday evening against Wrexham as Rovers picked up a 1-0 win against one of the league’s leading promotion candidates.
The first team boss spoke on Thursday to Richard Joyce about the game, the tough test Rovers face this weekend against new table toppers Fleetwood Town and with regards injuries to key players:
RJ: It was a great night for the club on Tuesday. Were you pleased to pull off a win against a team that is doing really well this season?
DH: It was a great night. The pitch was super, no wind and both sets of fans were very good. It was a great game of football so I was delighted with the performance and obviously very happy with the win and the three points.
RJ: Are you hoping now that Tuesday’s result will act as a catalyst for some more wins now?
DH: Yeah I do. I was angry after the Newport game because of the second half showing against ten men and I know it wasn’t a great day. But we didn’t perform to our standards. Other than that we have been playing very well and the frustration this season hasn’t been about points and performances it has just been about not getting enough points. We are not that far off – we are pretty much safe but we want more than that so I’m happy with the level of performance and happy with the fact we got three points and hopefully this can be another spell of us building some momentum and getting a few more points on the board.
RJ: A cracking finish from Matt Taylor. Are you hoping that will give him and your strikers some confidence?
DH: We had 21 efforts. 11 on target and 10 off. We haven’t had that many efforts on or off target against any opposition so to do that against the top team shows we were right at it. You’re really looking for a better percentages of goals to shots on target so really we should have had two or three goals for all of those efforts and then its game over so were still aware that we need to improve on that so we are looking to improve that. They are working very hard in training on finishing and it was a great finish from Matt but there were lots of shots from lots of players which is great. We are always creating goals so as long as we keep on doing that I believe over time that we’ll start putting more and more of them away.
RJ: You’ve played 30 games this season and you’ve taken points out of 22 of those games so you’ve come away from a lot of games with a positive result. Is that good for you as a team?
DH: I think it is good for us to know that we are performing at a very high level which for a young group of players is exceptional. Given the situation with other players not being available through injuries – this group of players have done remarkably well. Yes we have had eight defeats but there is a case in every game where you could say we should have come out with at least a draw, if not a win. That’s been more down to us missing our chances rather than the opposition. We don’t feel all season that there has been one team where we felt they were better than us. There’s nobody out there we are frightened of.
RJ: Fleetwood this Saturday which will be another really tough test. You know you can beat the top teams so is that going to give you and your team a bit of confidence?
DH: It’s quite ironic we played the top team on Tuesday and we are now playing the top team on Saturday because of that result on Tuesday. We’ll go in with confidence but we don’t want to get over confident. It will be a really tough game – they’ve got a brilliant away record and a very good footballing team. They area little bit more flamboyant than Wrexham and yet they can concede more. It is going to be a tough game for different reasons. It’s on a Saturday and it’s in the winter and sometimes that can be a bit flat so I do put out a rallying call to anyone out there who wants to see a good game of football because I think weare arguably the best two footballing teams in the league. Come here on Saturday, get behind the players and let’s get a big crowd here and show Fleetwood that we care about football at Forest Green Rovers and get a bit of an atmosphere because if we can recreate what we had on Tuesday night then that lifts the boys, it lifts everybody.
RJ: Team news wise – how is Kieron Forbes hamstring?
DH: We’ll assess that tomorrow (Friday). He felt it when he had a shot and then he recovered but he was feeling it so we took him off. We took Norwood off as well because he was feeling a bit of tightness as well so they’ve come in today and done some work. We’ll have a better idea on Kieron tomorrow.
RJ: Have there been any meetings yet involving Al Bangura’s knee situation?
DH: We’ve had the meeting and meetings with the consultants. We know exactly now where weare with Al. There are a lot of foreign bodies that were flushed out of the knee. There wasn’t an operation as such – they just went in and checked. They now know there was damage to one of the meniscus which was trimmed. He was walking around without crutches within 24 hours so it is now just a case of letting the knee settle down and we are very hopeful we can manage his knee and he can play a lot of games for Forest Green Rovers.
